Earthwatch: A Diary of the Planet

Explosive Eruption

Three people were injured and thousands of others were evacuated when the Mayon Volcano exploded in the Philippine province of Albay. The 8,090-foot volcano spewed a thick plume of smoke and ash four miles into the sky near the city of Legazpi. Three people suffered from smoke inhalation and were treated and released from a local hospital. Disaster officials evacuated nearly 10,000 people living within four miles of the crater.

Lightning Deaths

Thirteen people were killed and three others injured when lightning struck a community in southern Sierra Leone. The victims were in the open fields of their farm when the lightning struck. The three injured were taken to a local hospital.

One person was killed and a large section of St. Petersburg was damaged when a powerful thunderstorm accompanied by lightning struck the historic Russian city.

Hurricane Season

Hurricane Adrian, the season’s first in the eastern Pacific, killed at least six people as it unleashed flash floods and high winds across a wide stretch of western Mexico. Four people drowned in Puerto Madero in the southern state of Chiapas when huge waves generated by Adrian washed over a popular beach.

Monsoon Season

Powerful monsoon rains in southern Bangladesh left 5,000 people homeless and 40,000 others isolated in dozens of communities. More than four inches of rain fell during a 48-hour period. Flash flooding triggered by the torrential rainfall inundated the low-lying coastal regions of the Cox’s Bazar and Chittagong districts 180 miles south of the capital city of Dhaka.

Earthquakes

Office buildings swayed and people in Mexico City rushed into the streets as the second powerful earthquake to rock Mexico within a week struck the southwest of the country. No significant damage was reported.

Earth movements were also felt in the desert of Southern Califoria, Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, Japan’s Hokkaido Island, Sumatra, a remote area of northwest China, southwest Iran, eastern Romania and the Australian capital of Canberra.

Afghan Blazes

Four firefighters died battling a forest fire that was spreading across the mountains of northwest Afghanistan. The fire has raged out of control for more than a week, destroying thousands of acres of forest in the province of Kunar. The Afghan ruling group, the Taliban, appealed to the United Nations and the world community for assistance in controlling the blazes.

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Additional Sources: Mexico’s National Meteorological Service, U.S. National Earthquake Information Center and the United Nations World Meteorological Organization.