Category: Black Horse

World on the brink of worst food crisis in 50 years, UN warns

– June 10, 2020

Food systems are failing and the pandemic is mitigating the situation, said UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, on June 9, 2020.

“Unless immediate action is taken, it is increasingly clear that there is an impending global food emergency that could have long term impacts on hundreds of millions of children and adults.”

Although harvests of crops are holding up and export bans and protectionism have been largely avoided so far, the worst of the pandemic’s impacts and the recession that will follow is yet to be felt.

This year, about 49 million more may fall into extreme poverty due to the coronavirus as the number of people who are severely food insecure will rapidly expand.

“Even in countries with abundant food, we see risks of disruptions in the food supply chain,” Guterres pointed out. “We need to act now to avoid the worst impacts of our efforts to control the pandemic.”

The secretary-general plotted a three-point plan to restore the world’s ailing food systems and avoid further harm.

First, countries must focus aid on the worst-affected regions to ward off immediate disaster and for governments to prioritize food supply chains.

“That means designating food and nutrition services as essential while implementing appropriate protections for food workers. It means preserving critical humanitarian food, livelihood, and nutrition assistance to vulnerable groups.”

“And it means positioning food in food-crisis countries to reinforce and scale up social protection systems,” he added.

https://watchers.news

Magnitude 5.5 quake hits shaky California desert region

Associated Press – June 3, 2020

RIDGECREST, Calif. (AP) — A magnitude 5.5 earthquake has jolted the region of California desert where a powerful quake last summer was followed by thousands of aftershocks.

The U.S. Geological Survey says Wednesday’s quake hit at a fairly shallow depth shortly after 6:30 p.m. and was centered 13.6 miles (22 kilometers) north of the small city of Ridgecrest.

A dispatcher with the Ridgecrest Police Department said there were no immediate reports of damage or injury.

The quake was felt as a bump and rolling motion in a high-rise building in downtown Las Vegas. Local television news broadcasts stopped as anchors reported seeing lights sway in their studios.

It also shook buildings in downtown Los Angeles.

A magnitude 7.1 quake on July 5, 2019, and a magnitude 6.4 foreshock the day before strongly shook the region.

Damage from those quakes occurred to facilities on the sprawling Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake as well as in the nearby communities of Trona and Ridgecrest.

Seismologist Lucy Jones tweeted that Wednesday’s quake was “a large late aftershock” of last July’s activity. Among the many aftershocks, a handful have reached the magnitude-5 level.

https://news.yahoo.com

India Is Experiencing a Heatwave, a Cyclone, a Global Pandemic, and the Worst Locust Invasion in a Quarter of a Century

ETH – May 28, 2020

(ETH) – India is dealing with unprecedented disasters that are all unfolding simultaneously. The Nation is seeing heatwaves, a killer cyclone, coronavirus, and now a locusts invasion that is unlike anything that has been seen there in over a half a century.

According to Strange Sounds, The Indian capital, of Delhi, just experienced temperatures rise to 47.6°C on Tuesday, as most of north India faced severe heatwave conditions. Churu in Rajasthan state reportedly recorded a temperature of 50°C – making it India’s highest prompting officials to warn people to stay indoors as far as possible.

These devastating temperatures are the highest that India has experienced in decades for this time of the year. In fact, the global weather tracking website El Dorado stated that the region was the hottest in the world on Tuesday. Weather officials also told the local media in India that part of the reason for the heatwave was the result of Cyclone Amphan – that struck parts of eastern India and Bangladesh last week.

“Super cyclone Amphan sucked out all the moisture from other parts of the country,” Kuldeep Shrivastava, the head of the regional weather forecasting center told the Hindustan Times newspaper. According to the report, Heatwaves over the past few years have produced a number of deaths across India.

In addition to the heatwave and the cyclone, swarms of locusts are destroying crops in parts of the country, including Rajasthan in what is being called the worst locusts invasion in a half-century threatening the livelihood of many farmers in the country.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

More than 500 earthquakes rattle western Nevada after 6.5 hit less than a week ago

Amy Graff – May 20, 2020

The ground has come alive in a pocket of western Nevada.

A magnitude-6.5 earthquake rocked a remote region 35 miles west of Tonopah on May 15 and hundreds of aftershocks have followed — an event this corner of the county hasn’t seen in over half a century.

The initial big quake struck at 4:03 a.m. last Friday east of the Sierra Nevada, roughly halfway between Reno and Las Vegas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was the largest to hit Nevada in 66 years and caused cracking along US 95 in Esmeralda County and broke some windows in Tonopah but, because this area is mostly unpopulated, damage was minimal.

A dozen aftershocks of 4.5 and above — and 500 quakes of 2.5 and above — have been recorded near Tonopah since the 6.5 quake. As recently as Wednesday morning, a 5.0 temblor struck.

“This is your classic shock-aftershock sequence,” said Dr. Graham Kent, director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory. “This is similar to what you’d expect in the aftermath of the big quake.”

The 6.5 quake and following aftershocks occurred in the Walker Lane Seismic Region, a fault zone that roughly aligns with the Nevada-California border from Death Valley to Pyramid Lake.

Across time, Nevada has had an abundance of earthquakes and is considered the third most actively seismic state. The largest earthquake in state history was a magnitude 7.3 in 1915 and the next biggest was a 7.1 in 1932. In 1954 alone, the state saw five earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 or greater.

“And then it just went cold for 66 years,” Kent said. “We would tell people it’s all going to end and now it has. We knew sooner or later it would break and it broke in an area that’s not that populated.”

https://www.sfgate.com

6.5 magnitude earthquake hits Nevada near Area 51; quake felt from Utah to California

Chris Irvine, Peter Aitken – May 15, 2020

A magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck in remote western Nevada early Friday, according to the U.S. Geological Service, shaking people from Utah to California — and some pointing out it happened near Area 51.

The temblor was reported at 4:03 a.m. about 35 miles outside Tonopah, just east of the Sierra Nevada range. First recorded as a 6.4 earthquake, the USGS later upgraded it to a 6.5 magnitude.

The initial quake struck about 4.7 miles deep, the USGS said, and at least six sizable aftershocks were recorded shortly thereafter, including two with estimated magnitudes of 5.4. The USGS has advised that Nevada will continue to experience more earthquakes than usual as aftershocks continue throughout the day.

Initial reactions to the earthquake were largely humorous. Most people in the area were still asleep, meaning the earthquake woke them up.

A good number of reactions, though, noted the earthquake originated around the infamous Area 51, spurring a number of jokes that the earthquake was caused by aliens. In a year that has already included a pandemic, the threat of murder hornets and heightened hurricane activity, an Area 51 earthquake seemed to be fitting.

https://www.foxnews.com

Deadly Earthquake Hits Under Sleeping Volcano Near Tehran, Iran – Panicked Residents Spill Into the Streets

Strange Sounds – May 8, 2020

The very shallow quake (7km or 4.3 miles), downgraded from M5.1 to M4.6 sent ripples across Iran’s north shortly after midnight local time on Friday.

It struck north of the city of Damavand, very close to Mount Damavand, the second-highest volcano in Asia.

The dormant volcano sits some 70 km (43 mi) north-east of the Iranian capital Tehran, where locals reported moderate to severe shaking from the Friday morning tremor.

Photos and videos have emerged on social media showing residents flooding the streets in the aftermath of the quake.

Iranian emergency services said that at least two people died and 13 were injured in the ensuing chaos.

Several stadiums and city parks were reportedly prepared to temporarily shelter people that abruptly left their homes.

https://strangesounds.org

Western U.S. Is Facing the Worst Megadrought in Over 1,200 Years

Strange Sounds – Apr 18, 2020

In the 1930s, the United States was suffering from the most severe drought in its history, the “Dust Bowl.”

And be prepared to bite the dust once again, because scientists think the Dust Bowl is coming back for a second round. And this time for it could even last during decades.

A new study has used 1,200 years of tree-ring data, soil moisture records, and dozens of climate models to describe the ever-lengthening string of dry spells that have hit the western United States and northern Mexico over recent decades. 

They found that a chronic drought has been lurking around the southwestern US and northern Mexico since at least the year 2000.

The spell of aridity has already become so severe it’s already surpassed three of the four notoriously arid megadroughts of Medieval times.

The researchers were uncertain about the extent of the fourth Medieval megadrought, which spanned from 1575 CE to 1603 CE, although they note the current drought is affecting wider areas more consistently than any megadrought since 800 CE.

“We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we’re on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts,” stated lead author Park Williams.

https://strangesounds.org

Massive Earthquakes, Volcanoes now Erupting Worldwide

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz– April 13, 2020

The waves of earthquakes are rocking the center of the U.S. and the sudden awakening of several volcanoes around the world may be a sign of the pre-Messiah shake-up predicted by the prophets. At the same time, several far more mild earthquakes in Israel seem to embody the Biblical concept of God’s mercy being aroused by Man’s actions.

The earth seems to be waking up as seismic activity is being reported around the globe. Last month, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake shook Idaho, generating a multitude of avalanches. The quake was the largest in the region since a 6.9 quake hit in 1983. There have been 238 earthquakes in Idaho in the last week according to the U.S. Geological Survey website. Five of those have been substantial in size rating 4.0 to 6.5. Idaho isn’t new to experiencing earthquakes.

Two weeks before Idaho felt the earth move, Salt Lake City, Utah, approximately 340 miles away from the Idaho epicenter, was hit by a 5.7 magnitude earthquake. Since that earthquake, there have been 886 smaller earthquakes and aftershocks in the Salt Lake area.

The belly of the country is clearly rumbling as the University of Utah Seismograph Station mapped a total of 980 tremors throughout Idaho, Utah and Wyoming since March 18.

Though the epicenter in Idaho was over 200 miles distant from the Yellowstone caldera, Yellowstone experienced 111 earthquakes in March. The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory released its monthly report on Wednesday, declaring its current alert level “normal” and its aviation color code “green.”

https://www.breakingisraelnews.com

Hurricane Season Forecasted to be “Above Average”

End Time Headlines – April 15, 2020

(ETH) – Forecasters at Colorado State University have just released their Hurricane predictions for the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season and are calling for an “above-average” season.

According to WPTV, The researchers are predicting that there will be 16 named storms, eight hurricanes and four major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or greater.

“Reasons for above-average forecast include anticipated lack of #ElNino and warmer than normal tropical Atlantic,” the author of the forecast, Philip Klotzbach, tweeted on Thursday.

Last year the Atlantic hurricane season delivered 18 named storms and six hurricanes, including Hurricane Dorian which skirted close to the coast of Florida last September.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

OUCH! Giant Asian Hornets that can ‘kill with a single sting’ to invade virus-stricken US

Kassidy Vavra, Henry Pettit – April 9, 2020

GIANT Asian hornets that have begun to invade the coronavirus-stricken U.S. may cost the economy millions of dollars a year.

The insects, which can kill with a single sting, may have a devastating impact on the already dwindling honeybee population in the U.S.

Experts estimate the pests may cause America a staggering $29.3 million as they invade.

The invasion is projected as a coronavirus-stricken U.S. is already facing economic setbacks.

Millions are out of work – with nearly 17 million applying for unemployment in the last three weeks alone – as more than 432,000 cases of the virus have been confirmed in the U.S. alone.

Many experts have warned of a looming recession, as businesses have been forced to shutter their doors due to stay-at-home orders.

Asian hornets are similar to European hornets that live in the U.S., but they are not native to America.

They are large insects measuring almost 2in long, originally from Southeast Asia, that prey on small creatures – especially bees.

Just one sting is enough to kill someone allergic to their venom.

https://www.the-sun.com