Free Republic

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - Phillip Perry called a flood control tunnel home for three years. While helping some other homeless people at a wash at Boulder Highway this week, he told FOX5 about some close calls of when he got caught in rushing water while in a tunnel. “I’ve actually had to spend two to three hours just on the ladder because it came that quick,” said Perry. Perry said he escaped rising tunnel waters by climbing ladders that lead to manhole covers

The absence of monsoon rains at the source of the Nile was the cause of migrations and the demise of entire settlements in the late Roman province of Egypt...The oasis-like Faiyum region, roughly 130 km south-west of Cairo, was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire. Yet at the end of the third century CE, numerous formerly thriving settlements there declined and were ultimately abandoned by their inhabitants. Previous excavations and contemporary papyri have shown that problems with field irrigation were the cause. Attempts by local farmers to adapt to the dryness and desertification of the farmland - for example, by...

Federico De Romanis, "Comparative Perspectives on the Pepper Trade." ...compares quantitative data and other accounts of the pepper trade in Roman and Early Modern times and finds many broad similarities. Through his reading of both Roman and Early Modern European sources, De Romanis establishes that the Romans must have used both large and small ships carrying a very high proportion of pepper in their cargoes on the voyage from India. On the basis of recent readings of the Muziris papyrus, he argues that the Hermapollon, a large Roman ship, carried about 620 tons of pepper. De Romanis also considers the...

The states of Goa and Maharashtra have been badly affected, with many feared missing near the financial hub Mumbai. At least 136 people have died in Maharashtra, while in neighbouring Goa hundreds of homes have been damaged. Many factors contribute to flooding, but experts say climate change caused by global warming makes extreme rainfall more likely. Heavy rains and flooding have also hit western Europe and parts of China in recent weeks, while North America has grappled with scorching heatwaves. The monsoon season in India lasts from June to September each year. Rescuers have struggled to reach affected residents. Landslides...

The Catholic Church and its social service agency Caritas in Bangladesh are stepping up a massive nationwide tree plantation campaign with an aim to make the country greener and safer amid threats of climate change impacts. Since last year, they have jointly planted about 400,000 saplings of various species of fruit trees. A total of 700,000 trees will be planted by the end of the year. The campaign is inspired by three significant events — the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’s environmental encyclical Laudato Si', the golden jubilee of Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, and the birth centenary of the nation’s...

Water levels at China’s giant Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river are inching closer to their maximum after torrential rains raised inflows to a record high, official data showed on Friday. With 75,000 cubic metres per second of water flowing in from the Yangtze river on Thursday, the reservoir’s depths reached 165.6 metres by Friday morning, up more than 2 metres overnight and almost 20 metres higher than the official warning level. The maximum designed depth of China’s largest reservoir is 175 metres. Authorities raised the discharge volume to a record 48,800 cubic metres per second on Thursday to...

American Airlines Flight 1897 met a storm from hell on Sunday. Strong updrafts tossed the aircraft and thick hail battered its body. The incredible pictures of the plane's destroyed nose captured the world's attention. Meanwhile, though, observers on the ground captured another wild visual: the flight's meandering real-time path as pilots tried to navigate around the worst of the monster storm.

Early on this summer when I found myself down by Santa Rosa, AZ watching a gorgeous hail core fall on the stunning desert landscape, and then later that day staring at a haboob with a stacked shelf cloud above it near the border of Mexico, I had a feeling it would be a unique monsoon. It's funny how every year is different. That's the beauty of chasing the summer storm season out here in the desert southwest. You never know what's going to happen or what you might see.

Now that our monsoon is winding down, perhaps you are noticing areas on your property where heavy rainfalls have begun to wash away one of your most precious resources – your soil. Depending on the topography of your property, you may notice areas of bare ground, new small channels that are forming or older channels that are deepening with every rain event. Soil erosion is a natural and human-caused phenomenon worldwide and can even be seen from space through satellite imagery. For example, a quick peak on Google Maps of the delta south of New Orleans shows a very muddy,...

A $150,000 prize has been awarded to the “Water Gandhi of India” for his wildly successful work that turns abandoned, impoverished “dust bowls” into lush villages bustling with life again using an ancient method of rainwater harvesting. For teaching thousands of villagers in India’s most arid region how to build earthen dams to catch the monsoon rains and revitalize their land, Rajendra Singh was honored Friday with the 2015 Stockholm Water Prize. 30 years ago, Singh went to the poverty-stricken state of Rajasthan with the aim of setting up health clinics. He was told by villagers, however, that their greatest...

The earliest settlement in the subcontinent with evidence of agriculture and domestication at Mehrgarh — now in Pakistan — is about 9,000 years old. This coincides with the peak intensification of the monsoon, the study said... The Arabian Sea sediments and other geological studies show that the monsoon began to weaken about 5,000 years ago. The dry spell, lasting several hundred years, might have led people to abandon the Indus cities and move eastward into the Gangetic plain, which has been an area of higher rainfall than the northwestern part of the subcontinent... About 1,700 years ago, the monsoon began...

PHOENIX - Rescue crews were kept busy with several water rescues after a monsoon surge that brought extensive flooding to Arizona, trapped residents in their homes, closed a major freeway, and paralyzed traffic on several surface streets Tuesday morning. A flash flood warning for Maricopa County and surrounding areas was extended until 3 p.m. Tuesday. Structures were demolished, heavy equipment was carried away and ranches were covered by the raging waters in New River, where more than 4 inches of rain was reported.

SIERRA VISTA — Friday night’s rain prompted a flash flood warning for Sierra Vista from the National Weather Service until 9:15 p.m., while police reported several flooded roads and intersections throughout the city’s west end. Sierra Vista Cpl. Bobby Essary was out among the storm when he reported that Wilcox Drive was “like a river,” and that both that road and 7th Street were nearly impassable to traffic. There were also reports of flooding along the Highway 90 Bypass up to Buffalo Soldier Trail, though beyond the flooding there had been no reports of people in danger, except for one...

The north Indian state of Uttarakhand, blessed with nature’s bounty- it has the Himalayas and some of India’s mightiest rivers run through it- was the scene of nature’s fury this week as flash floods and landslides caused a devastation that is being dubbed as a ‘Himalayan tsunami’. Amid the torrential monsoon rain, rivers overflowed, destroying homes and trapping thousands of people in the debris. Television coverage saw entire buildings toppling over and being swept away in raging rivers. An overwhelmed state government was hard put to cope, forcing the federal government to press 10,000 troops from the army into servicing the...

Deadly torrential rains submerged much of the Philippine capital and surrounding areas on Tuesday, forcing nearly 270,000 people to flee their homes with more flooding expected in the north of the country as a tropical storm passes through the region, officials said. Steady rains for the past 10 days, killing more than 50 people, are set to continue until Wednesday, the Philippines weather bureau said, fuelled by tropical storm "Haikui" in the Philippine Sea northeast of Taiwan. The storm is headed for China's Zhejiang province where more than 250,000 people have been evacuated ahead of expected landfall late on Wednesday....

Yang Chiu-hsing, magistrate of Kaohsiung, said yesterday he is considering turning the mudslide-destroyed village of Siaolin into a memorial park. “I think we should keep Siaolin as a park in memory of those we believe were buried alive,” said the magistrate of the southern Taiwan county, who opposes the rebuilding of the village. One reason for Yang's consideration to create the memorial park is that most of the residents do not want more excavation of tens of thousands of tons of mud to locate the approximately 200 people buried and presumed dead. They do not want heavy construction equipment crushing...

NEW DELHI: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Thursday spent considerable time deliberating the impact of less than normal monsoon and its possible effects on the economy and the food situation in the country. Despite the IMD predicting that July and August would see a recovery in the monsoon, fears were expressed that a repeat of last year — a dip in July rains — coming on the back of very weak June monsoon could be dangerous for the economy.

Loss of forests in India, China during the 1700s led to a decline in monsoon precipitation The dramatic expansion of agriculture in India and southeastern China during the 18th century — a sprawl that took place at the expense of forests — triggered a substantial drop in precipitation in those regions, a new study suggests. Winds that blow northeast from the Indian Ocean into southern Asia each summer bring abundant rain to an area that’s home to more than half the world’s population. But those seasonal winds, known as monsoons, brought about 20 percent less rainfall each year to India...

The first U.S. GPL-related lawsuit appears to be headed for a quick out-of-court settlement. Monsoon Multimedia admitted today that it had violated the GPLv2 (GNU General Public License version 2), and said it will release its modified BusyBox code in full compliance with the license. Spread the word:digg this story Monsoon Multimedia has stated that it is currently in settlement negotiations with the BusyBox project to resolve the matter without going to court. The company also said in a statement that it intends to fully comply with all open-source software license requirements. The company plans to make its modified BusyBox...

GAUHATI, India - Teeming monsoon rains have inundated wide swaths of northern India and neighboring Bangladesh, killing at least 166 people and washing away villages and farmland that 19 million people depend on, officials said Thursday. With rain-swollen rivers bursting their banks along the fertile plains south of the Himalayas, India sent soldiers to help evacuate people from some of the worst-hit areas. "I have not seen such flooding in the last 24 years. It's a sheet of water everywhere," said Santosh Mishra, a resident of the Gonda district in Uttar Pradesh, one of the areas soldiers were sent. Authorities...