Earthwatch: A Diary of the Planet

Tropical Storms

Tropical storm Wendy produced the worst flooding this century as it passed over the Chinese coastal city of Wenzhou. The floods and high winds killed at least 200 people and left thousands injured. Pounding rains destroyed 2,000 homes and inflicted damage to an additional 8,300 others.

* Hurricane Greg weakened to tropical storm strength before drenching the southern tip of Baja California and adjacent mainland areas of Mexico.

* Hurricane Dennis finally moved ashore in North Carolina and weakened over the eastern U.S. after meandering offshore for more than a week. The storm produced $43 million in flood and erosion damage across North Carolina alone.

* Hurricane Floyd formed over the open waters of the mid-Atlantic and closed in on the Southeast U.S. coast.

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Earthquakes

A magnitude 5.9 earthquake shook Athens for 10 seconds, taking at least 64 lives and wrecking a large number of buildings around the Greek capital.

Earth movements were also felt northeast of Athens and in northern and southeastern parts of Italy, Turkey’s aftershock zone, South Australia, the southern Philippines, central Utah, northern Illinois and the desert of Southern California.

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Czech Bat Invasion

Dozens, maybe hundreds, of bats have invaded a regional police headquarters in a northern Bohemian town, making night shifts especially unpleasant for officers. “They are sleeping during the day, but during the night, you have to bend when walking,” said Vlasta Suchankova, police spokeswoman in Liberec, 60 miles north of Prague. She said dozens of the small flying mammals fly through the corridors, terrifying the staff. Suchankova added that the bats favor men’s toilets on the second floor. She said environmentalists have advised the police to wait for winter, when the bats will hibernate and can be moved to caves.

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The Planet’s Hum

Japanese researchers have been studying a mysterious hum emitted by Planet Earth as its geological and atmospheric events combined to produce a frenetic symphony. Naoki Suda and Kaqunari Nawa dredged out the sounds from a mass of seismic data, according to a report in New Scientist, and say that the pitches of the 50 notes range between 2 and 7 millihertz -- about 16 octaves below middle C. They said that the individual notes sound pleasant enough, but combined they are like an endless banging on a trash can. They advise that it would be impossible for anyone to hear them with the naked ear, and the sounds are so subtle that a single magnitude-5.5 quake anywhere on the planet would blot them out. The hum is not actually the sound of seismic or weather events, but is the lingering echo of their combined occurrences.