“Mother Nature Hates You”

The sight of newly constructed apartments collapsing in the earthquakes that hit Turkey has sparked anger. The BBC examined three new buildings, turned to rubble, to find out what they reveal about building safety.

Two major earthquakes – measuring 7.8 and 7.5 on the magnitude scale – flattened buildings of all kinds and killed thousands of people across southern Turkey and northern Syria.

But the fact that even some of the newest apartment blocks crumbled to dust has led to urgent questions about building safety standards.

The earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria at 4am on Monday is already among the deadliest of our young century. The death toll hit 7,700 on Wednesday morning and is expected to rise dramatically, as the time window for finding survivors in the rubble gets narrower by the minute. In southern Turkey alone, some 6,000 buildings have been levelled, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. All in all, some 23million people across Turkey and Syria are said to have been impacted by the earthquake and its aftershocks. The humanitarian crisis that is unfolding is bleak beyond words. The obvious question it invites is, could things have been different?

Birds flew erratically above snow-capped buildings. Dogs howled loudly. Then, a devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria leveled buildings and killed more than 5,000 people.

Social media users claimed that animals were behaving strangely just before the massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake and significant aftershocks. While The Washington Post could not immediately verify the footage, the idea that animals can detect powerful earthquakes before humans has been a theory around since at least ancient times.

Developing

Let me introduce you to something truly horrifying – the fungus that turns its victims into zombies.

Its spores enter the body. The fungus then grows and begins to hijack the mind of its host until it loses control and is compelled to climb to higher ground.

The parasitic fungus devours its victim from the inside, extracting every last nutrient, as it prepares for its big finale.

Taken at about 4 PM. Six Points. OK it’s looking like a storm now.

Taken at about 4 PM. Six Points in TO #ONStorm pic.twitter.com/zM0hKXoeRb

— Fancypants Maloney (@fancypants_s) January 25, 2023

Taken at about 2 PM. Six Points. CP24 now claims up to 25 cm of snow on the way. It’s heavier now, roads are sticky but I remain doubtful about final accumulation.

Taken at about Noon. Six Points. They claim up 10 to 20 cm is on its way. My bet is they will be way off as usual. TO has it’s own climate now. 5 cm is more like it.

It is crazy to blame every bad weather event on mankind.

There’s always been an irony in the haughtiness of America’s coastal elites. These people look down on Middle Americans and their cranky beliefs – they ‘cling’ to religion, as Obama infamously said – and yet they themselves hold far wackier views. They think there’s a hundred genders. That racism is the original sin of the United States that will never be washed away. That whites must engage in the self-mortification of checking their privilege. And that climate change is Mother Nature’s punishment of mankind for his hubristic industrial antics. That last one is positively pre-modern. It makes the other religions in the US look perfectly sane.

Buffalo officials had more grim news to report Tuesday morning: The city’s blizzard-related death toll had reached 28, Mayor Byron Brown said during a press conference. And that number, which had risen by eight since yesterday, was expected to rise as more buried vehicles were uncovered.

“Buffalo has been ground-zero for this storm,” Brown said. “The impact for this winter storm was the most harsh in Buffalo of Erie County and of Western New York. These are not normal snowfall conditions.”

As the city remained under a driving ban, emergency crews shifted from rescue efforts to snow removal, with 268 pieces of equipment active to clear main and residential streets. Like the storm a month ago that dumped several feet in a short period, the removal leaned away from plows and more toward front loaders picking up snow and dropping it into dump trucks, which were then bound for four dumping sites spread throughout the city.

🚨#BREAKING: Wild scene from Buffalo as homes are fully covered in ice

📌#Buffalo | #NY

Jaw dropping video shows houses covered in ice homes near the water were encased in ice and dripping with icicles from Powerful winds and strong waves from Lake Erie pic.twitter.com/q9GFeEhE6u

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) December 25, 2022

The bomb cyclone that has brought freezing temperatures and up to six feet of snow to North America has caused at least 50 deaths across the US and Canada.

The US recorded 46 fatalities and four more people died on Christmas Eve after a bus rolled over on icy roads in British Columbia, Canada.

The deep freeze is linked to 18 deaths in the state of New York, particularly in Buffalo where the ‘lake-effect’ – when frigid air moves over warmer lake waters and creates a freezing spray – has been lethal.

The aftermath of mass looting today in Buffalo, NY following a storm: pic.twitter.com/sJPVOYgtj9

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 26, 2022

Toronto and the GTA were spared the worst of it. I went for a visit to Hamilton on Christmas Eve day, the roads were clear and dry but the wind and cold were fierce.

Blizzard London Ontario Canada.
Dashcam footage captures moment of horrific crash on the 401 highway. pic.twitter.com/q2Uafl7MNu

— (@72powpow) December 26, 2022

From Mauser

Approaching 6 feet of snow here in Hamburg! #BuffaloStorm2022 #BuffaloNY #Buffalo #buffalosnow #buffalolakeeffect #LakeEffectSnow pic.twitter.com/NvehaEmFf5

— BuffaloWeather (@weather_buffalo) November 19, 2022

h/t Mauser

WASHINGTON — The serious drought in much of the United States over the past several months is having an impact on the Mississippi River, the second-longest river in the country after the Missouri River.

The Mississippi’s water levels fell so low in some places that they surpassed records set more than 30 years ago.