More than 100 people were injured in Spain as riot police clashed with protesters on Friday, as authorities cleared away a makeshift camp set up as part of a Spain-wide demonstration against the country’s economic problems. The trouble started when police tried to clear the protesters from a main square in Barcelona. Many of the protesters, who are angry about high unemployment, anti-austerity measures and politicians’ handling of the economy, refused to move. Video from a local broadcaster showed officers beating the demonstrators and dragging them on the ground.
Absolutely incredible footage. First they put it in reverse to get away from the funnel, then they start driving driving parallel to it.
From Holy Tornado:
After coming really close to a giant wedge tornado in Lookeba Oklahoma, Holy Tornado then raced south to Chickasha were we once again got our visual of the mesocyclone just of to our southwest. Before this thing had condensed all the way to the ground, you could see the concentrated area where the funnel was about to emerge from the meso. It seemed like there was just a cloud of debris on the ground underneath this meso forever until it had finally fully condensed. Thereafter as the twister gets closer, it intensifies dramatically right outside Jeremy’s window. Shortly after this, you see it hit several homes in a small community and also hits a trailor house and lofts it out the back of the twister. We immediately start searching through rubble and debris. Fortunately, nobody that we know so far has been reported dead from this area although there were some injuries. May god be with the families that were effected by this and may the recovery process get underway fast and be quickly completed.
Another video from Holy Tornado:
_________________________________________________ Other footage of the recent tornados:
_________________________________________________ This video gives me the chills as you can first hear the warning sirens, then the crashing as the tornado hits the building – thankfully they’re in a basement
Aerial photos of the Missouri city of Joplin taken on Tuesday showed the widespread devastation wrought by the record-breaking tornado that struck over the weekend, with entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble and massive buildings levelled. The National Weather Service said Sunday’s twister was an EF-5, the strongest rating assigned to tornadoes, with winds of more than 200 miles per hour. With 122 people confirmed dead so far, it was the deadliest single twister since the National Weather Service began keeping official records in 1950 and the eighth-deadliest in US history.
Currently estimated to have been an EF4 (166-200mph winds) strength twister. Death toll currently at 89 and still counting. 75% of the city has been devastated, leveled – 2,000 buildings. Estimated to have been a mile wide. Debris found 70 miles away.
The tornado slammed into St. John’s Hospital, doing damage from the top to the bottom of the building. One witness reported seeing a victim blown out of the building when the twister hit.
Will add more video through the day as it comes in.
On the following video, from the person who took it, “The video i took while at Fastrip on east 20th street. We huddled in the back of the store until the glass got sucked out , then ran into the walk in storage fridge. Sorry for the lack of visuals but the audio is pretty telling of how intense the storm was. The tornado hits at around 1:20 seconds.”
Most active volcano in Continental Europe, Mount Etna, on Thursday (12 / 5) morning, again erupted. Mountain located on the island of Sicily, Italy, was accompanied by bursts of backfire hot lava and ash into the air.
Etna eruption occurred between the hours of 02:00 until 06:00 local time. Italian authorities closed the airport services in the city of Catania, the town nearest to Mount Etna, after warnings from the specialist mountain Institute of Volcanology in Catania.
In addition, workers also attempted to clear the airport runway from volcanic ash. The eruption of Mount Etna would create problems. Section, will take place next Sunday racing bike from the city of Messina to the Etna.
Etna, with an altitude of 3295 meters, is the most active volcano in Continental Europe. The mountain had last erupted in 1992.
TEPCO released footage for the first time on Wednesday of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant Unit 3 reactor’s spent fuel pool. The fuel rods, covered in debris from the March explosions, weren’t visible in the footage but officials believe they are largely undamaged. In an operation filmed by a robot camera, 40 milliliters of water was collected from the spent fuel pool. The water is contaminated with high levels of radioactive material which needs further analysis for evaluation.
Historically high water levels in the Mississippi and Ohio river systems prompted the Army Corps of Engineers to intentionally blow up levees and flood 130,000 acres in Missouri. Now “the most high risk population” is in Memphis, according to Corps of Engineers Col. Vernie Reichling, though the worst danger zone is expected to move further south in the days to come.
“This water that we’re seeing coming by is moving 2 million cubic feet per second,” said Reichling of the situation on Sunday outside Memphis. “To use an analogy, in one second that water would fill up a football field 44 feet deep.”
By daybreak Sunday, the Mississippi had already reached 47.3 feet.
The river is expected to crest at 48 feet — just shy of the 48.7-foot record set in 1937 — shortly after midnight Tuesday, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Borghoff.
Officials have looked at the possibility of the river reaching 52 feet, “solely to fall on the high side of caution,” Nations said.
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An explosion lights up the night sky as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blows an 11,000-foot hole in the Birds Point levee in Mississippi County, Mo. on Monday. The breach lowered the flood levels at Cairo, Illinois. Credit: Getty Images, NOAA
______________________________________________ UPDATE: MAY 9, 2011
Forecasters say the Mississippi River could crest late Monday at Memphis, hours sooner than previously predicted, but the mayor says the city’s ready for it. (May 9)
Forecasters are pushing up their prediction of when the Mississippi River could crest at Memphis. Now, the river could reach 48 feet as early as Monday night. (May 9)
Video footage by Clay Hasenfuss | Tuscaloosa AL
Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama declared a state of emergency after 25 were killed by storms on Wednesday alone. That was before the tornado hit Tuscaloosa, where 100 were said to have been injured. Another 11 people were killed in Mississippi, two in Georgia and one in Tennessee.
The Tuscaloosa tornado was one of several that hit Alabama. It tore through the city after 5pm, sweeping past a major medical centre, the University of Alabama campus and a high school.
Many parts of the state had been on a tornado watch throughout the day, prompting schools, government offices and businesses to close early or shut down. One of the Mississippi dead was a father trying to shelter his daughter at a campsite when he was killed.
Mayor Walter Maddox of Tuscaloosa said that sections of the city had been destroyed. News footage showed paramedics lifting a child out of a flattened home, with many other buildings in the city of more than 83,000 people also reduced to rubble.
“The city experienced widespread damage from a tornado that cut a path of destruction deep into the heart of the city,” Mr Maddox said in a statement.
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4/28/11 UPDATE:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Some of the killer tornadoes that ripped across the South may have been among the largest and most powerful ever recorded, experts suggested, leaving a death toll that is approaching that of a tragic “super outbreak” of storms almost 40 years ago.
“There’s a pretty good chance some of these were a mile wide, on the ground for tens of miles and had wind speeds over 200 mph,” said Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.
PERSONAL NOTE: I grew up in tornado alley, but have never witnessed anything like this…. There are no words to describe what these people have gone through, and will go through….
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Video footage by Clay Hasenfuss | Tuscaloosa AL
