ENVIRONMENT

An outdoor party for a 30-year-old man on Saturday turned into a tragedy when a crocodile attacked and ate one of his guest, a 24-year-old man from Darwin while they swimming across the muddy river.

A massive sinkhole in rural Louisiana has opened up and continued to expand at a rapid rate which caused it to devour a clump of trees and land. The video of the Louisiana sinkhole was captured on video and posted on Youtube by the Assumption Parish Police Jury.

Hong Kong may not be directly affected by severe tropical storm Trami, which is currently battering China, but it surely still made its presence felt in the country. Trami's coverage was so wide that it trapped pollutants in Hong Kong's air to reach "very high" levels, prompting the government to issue health warnings.

The fireplace is considered one of the most romantic places in the house, next to the bedroom. However, in Montreal, a major city in Quebec, Canada, the fireplace as well as wood-burning stoves would be banned by 2021.

Unless the governments of the world find immediate solutions to curb their respective fossil fuel consumptions and carbon emissions, the global populace might as well retire to an impending plausible scenario of rising sea levels by year 2100 to as much as three feet high.

Authorities from both government and private sectors from the Philippines have brought forces together as they race to contain the oil spill damage in Cebu which has already greatly affected the sources of livelihood in the province.

New Zealand's White Island Volcano, off the Bay of Plenty Coast, erupted on Tuesday morning, Aug 20, at 10:23 am. The eruption, which sent steam into the air reaching 4 kilometres above sea level, lasts for about 10 minutes.

Australia affects worldwide sea level rising according to the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

The global populace, most specially those living along the world's coastal cities, either pack up and relocate to high grounds as early as now or accept their fate as the intensity of floods currently lapping the Earth will get more severe and damaging in the coming years.

The Sakurajima volcano in southwestern Japan erupted on Sunday afternoon, spewing ashes 5 kilometres up in the air. As a result, railway operators stopped their service in Kagoshima City temporarily while the ash is being removed.

A Yemeni wedding party on Saturday turned into a disaster after floods inundated southern Yemen, causing the death of 27 people and 41 more lost when the vehicle with the wedding party was swept away. The vehicles were driving across Wadi Nakhla, a valley flooded by the monsoon rains, between Taiz City and Ibb province.

Some Ontario residents, it seems, have a love affair with deadly pythons. Just two weeks after an African rock python killed two boys in New Brunswick, 40 pythons were found in a Brantford motel on Thursday evening.

Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. on Thursday slammed an order issued by the government of Canada's Quebec stating it has been included among a list of companies financially accountable for the cleanup of Lac-Megantic town which was severely devastated in a train derailment disaster in July.

There is another lightning strike that hit the Odakyu Electric Railway train on Monday evening. The Telegraph said the train, which was travelling from the Izumi-Tamagaw Station to the Noborito Station, was running on a railway bridge when the lightning hit it.

Unless China radically implements measures and steps to salvage what remains of its environment, it may have to expect and get used to dwindling tourist numbers.

An American family that was driving on Saturday in Utah had a unique experience that its passengers would never forget. They filmed lightning striking their vehicle.

Workers of the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan have alleged its operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) have been lying about the true state of meltdown crisis in the facility.

Skinny dipping has its risk, several South American fishermen have discovered after their testicles were attacked by the pacu fish, a relative of the piranha.

Mount Rokatenda in the East NusaTenggara province of Indonesia erupted on Saturday morning, killing 6 sleeping people and causing 3,000 residents to flee Palue Island, the country's National Disaster Mitigation Agency reported.

All around the world, the smoldering heat wave continues to break and set records from end to end of the globe.

As China steps up measures to combat its growing air pollution from out of proportions, imposing excessive rates on automotive license plates to encourage residents from buying additional units, local Chinese auto makers are unfortunately being driven to extinction.

After admitting in July that crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has indeed been pouring contaminated radioactive water into the ocean waters, it was just a matter of time as to when the world will know just how much toxic liquid it actually releases. On Wednesday, the information was released and it was like World War II again. Since being damaged in 2011, the Fukushima facility has leaked a whopping 300 tonnes of radioactive water daily into the ocean.

The prolonged heat and low rainfall that UK experienced in July not only distressed humans but has also affected the otherwise peaceful conditions of freshwater fishes in the lakes and rivers. On Wednesday, the Environment Agency reported at least 50,000 fishes have died off the British coast due to dangerously low oxygen levels in the waters.

New Zealand’s failure in key environmental areas was announced in a high-level conference during a time when the nation’s 100 per cent pure brand is under international media scrutiny. Insights were given regarding New Zealand’s climate, energy efficiency and waterways were given in the recent Environmental Defence Society’s national conference.

Smartphone maker Apple Inc gets tangled in yet another controversy, this time involving its suppliers Foxconn Technology Group and Unimicron Technology, alleged to have been dumping toxic wastewater from heavy metals into China's local rivers.

The Canadian province of Manitoba will ban in 2014 the use of coal and petroleum coke for heating to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. It will also collect an emissions tax on industrial users of the two commodities other than heating.

A video, now getting more hits in sharing sites such as YouTube, is disturbing those who had viewed the images because of its disturbing cruelty to animals. The short video showed a mother kangaroo show twice by an arrow on the spine and leg.

A study by German and Swiss scientists published in the journal Nature Geoscience has disclosed that earthquakes not only trigger landslides and tsunamis and do massive damages to infrastructure, not to mention lives lost. They also trigger the release of damaging greenhouse gas methane from underground reservoirs.

A joint military mission by the U.S. and Australia with about 30,000 soldiers was forced to abandon bombs from an aircraft after failing to land their fighter jets safely. The US Navy told the Australian government that it would offer any help required to remove the bombs mistakenly dropped inside the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef marine park .