http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=10398&cat=dis&lang=engSuwaiq, a small hamlet on the Batinah coast 125-km north of Muscat, was hit with cricket-ball sized hail as rain beat down on most parts of Oman for the whole of Saturday night bringing down mercury level to sub 20 degree centigrades. The hail stones caused extensive damage to properties and vehicles in Suwaiq, according to eye witnesses, who spoke to Gulf News from Suwaiq. “It was a sleepless night as hail stones rained down at least three times on Saturday night,” Omani businessman Maheshbhai Ashar, told Gulf News, adding that the first shower of hail stones came close to 10pm. Ashar, whose family runs a business in this town for over a century, said that the hails cascaded in big quantity. “Windscreens and lights of most vehicles in the town are broken while several cars had big dents due to hail stones,” he revealed. The merchant also said that neon sign boards of several shops and business establishments were damaged beyond repair. The insurance industry otherwise is bracing up for huge claims due to hail storm as well as heavy rains that lashed most parts of the country on the north and western regions. Some cars parked on low lying areas last night in Muscat were tossed around by heavy currents from wadis, especially in Qurum and Darseit areas.
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http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=10402&cat=dis&lang=engSheikh Alauddin, like hundreds of other residents living on West Bengal's Moushuni island, has never heard the term "global warming". But he is living with its consequences. "At night we just pray to God, and hope the sea does not drown us," the 60-year-old told Reuters in Poilagheri village on the sparsely-populated island, part of the Sunderbans national park and the world's largest mangrove forest. When the tide comes in, sea water laps at the top of a mud embankment that towers 6 metres (20 feet) above Alauddin's adjacent house and is all that keeps it from being washed away. After a 10-year study in and around the Bay of Bengal, oceanographers say the sea is rising at 3.14 millimetres a year in the Sunderbans against a global average of 2 mm, threatening low-lying areas of India and Bangladesh. "At least 15 islands have been affected but erosion is widespread in other islands as well," said Sugato Hazra, an oceanographer at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal. A United Nations climate panel, which grouped 2,500 scientists from 130 countries, concluded last month that human activity was causing global warming and predicted more droughts, heatwaves and rising seas.
But for the Sunderbans, made up of hundreds of islands and criss-crossed by narrow water channels and home to many of India's dwindling tiger population, the threat is more immediate. "The crops have failed due to scanty rainfall but where do we go?" says Alauddin as his family of twelve stares at their parched farmland. A combination of drought and then heavy rainfall this year and increasing soil salinity have made it impossible to grow enough food to survive on traditional agriculture alone. "We now depend on fishing in the high seas and sometimes even eat leaves from different plants to survive," a frail-looking Jameel Mullick said. At least 4 million people live in the islands spread across 9,630 sq. km (3,700 sq. miles) of mangrove swamps.
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isn't climate change fun
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