Earthwatch: A Diary of the Planet

Summer Infernos

More than 120 wildfires that raged through parts of South Africa’s Western Cape province have caused widespread damage to the Silvermine Nature Reserve as well as several inhabited areas. Despite summer heat and high winds, authorities believed they had brought the fires under control early in the week, but sparks from a burning mountainside near Simon’s Town later ignited one of the country’s oldest inhabited districts.

Venezuelan Floods Return

Fresh mudslides were unleashed and rivers burst their banks in northern Venezuela as 50 hours of pounding rains struck the region. The slides began a day after a powerful earthquake hit the same area, but officials tried to reassure the population that there was no connection between the two events. Panicked residents feared that the flooding could reach the magnitude of last December’s disastrous inundations. The renewed flooding and slides struck the state of Vargas, located on the coastal strip north of the capital city of Caracas. Overflowing rivers and streams destroyed much recent reconstruction work.

Crocodile Menace

The African countries of Botswana and Malawi are both plagued with exploding populations of crocodiles that have been killing local residents at an alarming rate in recent months. Crocodiles in the Lower Shire Valley of southern Malawi have been killing at least two people per day, but the number could be even higher because the incidents have become so common that they are going unreported. The reptiles have been flourishing since the signing of the International Convention on Endangered Species, which limits the culling of crocodiles and some other animals. The booming crocodile population has put a strain on the reptiles’ food supplies and sent them into populated areas.

Earthquakes

At least four people were killed and hundreds of others injured when a magnitude 5.9 foreshock, followed by a powerful magnitude 6.5 earthquake, struck southwest China’s Yunnan province. Initial reports said the temblor destroyed more than 10,000 homes in the province’s Yao’an county.

Earth movements were also felt in Taiwan, the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, northern Greece, southwestern Peru, northeastern Colombia, western Venezuela, two points in Northern California, Alaska’s Kodiak Island, western Maine and central Georgia.

Famed Tigress Feared Dead

A pelt found by Indian wildlife experts in the home of an alleged game poacher may be that of a well-known female tiger seen on the cover of National Geographic and featured in frequent television documentaries. The tigress, Sita, lived in the Bandhavgarh National Park in the state of Madhya Pradesh but had not been seen since October 1998. The bloodstained tiger skin was discovered in the possession of a man who lives near the park and has a record of poaching. Forest officials said the markings closely resembled Sita’s, and there was evidence that the tiger had been killed recently.