Arkansas: Wildlife Officials Discover Thousands of Dead Fish Along Arkansas River in Little Rock

By Suzi Parker – “(Reuters) – Wildlife officials have discovered thousands of dead fish along the Arkansas River in Little Rock and were still counting carcasses on Tuesday, a day after an angler reported seeing dozens of dead white bass.

‘We are on the river trying to determine the extent of the fish kill,’ said Keith Stephens, public information coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

Wildlife investigators said the dead fish were mainly white bass, which are common in the river, and were between 5 and 8 inches long. Most were found near the foot of the Two Rivers Bridge, an 80-foot pedestrian bridge that opened in July.

An Arkansas Department of Pollution Control and Ecology official said toxins had not been eliminated as a potential cause and that oxygen levels had tested normal so far. Other test results for disease and parasites could take a month to conclude.” Read more.

California: Hundreds of Dead Squid Wash Up at Blacks Beach

There have been reports in the past of large oarfish and even whales beaching themselves just days before a large earthquake.  Could squid now be doing the same thing? …

“SAN DIEGO — Hundreds of Humboldt squid washed up on Black’s Beach over the weekend.

San Diego lifeguard Sgt. Ben Lewis said the squid rode the tide in on Saturday afternoon.

‘It was quite a scene to see with the beach strewn with hundreds of dead and dying squid,’ said Lewis.

Lewis said the squid were each about a foot long and appeared to weigh a few pounds. He added that it was much more than just a sight.

‘Of course, as you might imagine, there were some odors associated with that,’ he said. ‘The only thing left on the beach right now is the scent of dead squid and seagull footprints.’

The squid, which are native to South America and can grow to be six feet, appeared on the beach Saturday afternoon until early Sunday morning, when high tide washed away all but 50 of the squid.

Lewis said seagulls flocked to feast on the remaining dead squid.” Read more.

At Least 4 Dead as Typhoon ‘Roke’ Smashes Into Japan, Heads for Fukushima Nuclear Plant

By Chana Ya’ar – “At least four people are dead and two more are missing in a typhoon that smashed into Japan from the Pacific Ocean.

Workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are bracing for the worst as the storm heads their way.

‘We have taken every possible measure against the typhoon,’ Naoko Tsunoda, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Company, operator of the plant, told reporters.

‘We have tied down cables and hoses while fixing equipment so that radioactive materials will not spread [in the violent winds].’ All ground and sea operations have been suspended, he added.

Winds were raging at up to 130 miles per hour at the center of the storm, with heavy rains pouring down.

Four people were found dead in central and western Japan. A young boy disappeared on his way home from elementary school, and another person has disappeared as well in the central prefecture of Gifu.

The storm, dubbed Typhoon Roke by Japan’s Meteorological Agency, made landfall near Hamamatsu in central Japan at about 2:00 p.m. local time Wednesday, and was on course to move northeast across the island of Honshu.” Read more.

China: Genetically Linked Polio Strain From Pakistan Makes Its Way To Chinese Mainland

By Jaime FlorCruz and Haolan Hong – “Beijing (CNN) — An outbreak of polio has been confirmed in China for the first time since 1999, leaving one person dead and hospitalizing another nine, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The disease, a contagious viral illness that in its most severe form causes paralysis, difficulty breathing and sometimes death, broke out in the prefectures of Hotan and Bazhou in the country’s western Xinjiang province.

Among the ten cases confirmed, six are in children under three years old and four are young adults.

The WHO said evidence indicates the virus is genetically linked to polio cases currently circulating in Pakistan, which borders Xinjiang. Pakistan has been affected by the nationwide transmission of the same WPV1 strain.

It also warned the virus could spread beyond the current affected area.

‘Although other areas in China or other countries are not immediately at risk due to the geographic distance to the affected province, the polio virus can travel great distances and find susceptible populations, no matter where they live,’ Helen Yu, from the WHO’s Beijing office told CNN.” Read more.

Sun Unleashes 6 ‘Rapid-Fire’ Solar Bursts in 18 Hours

“Between 7pm ET on September 18 and 1pm ET on September 19, six large solar plasma explosions were recorded by the SOHO satellite. One of these coronal mass ejections may create some geomagnetic fireworks viewable on Earth on September 21.” Source.

Solar Megastorm Could Cripple Satellites for a Decade – Earth-orbiting satellites are designed to withstand the sun’s explosions—but they may not be strong enough to ride out a solar ‘megastorm,’ a new study says. If hit by a powerful onslaught of solar energy and particles, Earth’s atmosphere would be flooded with high-energy electrons accelerated to nearly the speed of light, according to a new computer model. This would hinder operations of low-Earth orbiting, or LEO, satellites. The satellites wouldn’t immediately start falling out of the sky following a megastorm, but they would malfunction much faster than previous models suggested.” Read more.

Solar flare could unleash nuclear holocaust across planet Earth, forcing hundreds of nuclear power plants into total meltdowns – “Forget about the 2012 Mayan calendar, comet Elenin or the Rapture. The real threat to human civilization is far more mundane, and it’s right in front of our noses. If Fukushima has taught us anything, it’s that just one runaway meltdown of fissionable nuclear material can have wide-ranging and potentially devastating consequences for life on Earth. To date, Fukushima has already released 168 times the total radiation released from the Hiroshima nuclear bomb detonated in 1945 … What if a global tidal wave could destroy the power generating capacities of all the world’s power plants, all at once? Such a scenario is not merely possible, but factually inevitable. And the global tidal wave threatening all the nuclear power plants of the world isn’t made of water but solar emissions.” Read more.

Flashback: NASA Warns Of Super Solar Storm in 2012