Photography

TransAsia Airways Plane Crashes into River…

NatarajanLeave a comment

A PASSENGER plane with 58 people on board plunged into a river after clipping a road bridge outside Taiwan’s capital, with 27 people rescued so far, leaving others unaccounted for.

The number of fatalities are unclear, but the Taiwanese Civil Aviation Authority said in a press conference that there were nine confirmed deaths, 18 people were injured, and 31 people who were unaccounted for.

Local media has since reported that up to 19 are dead, but according to China’s state broadcaster CCTV, the death toll has risen to 21.

Since the crash, terrifiying images have also emerged of how the plane went off course before it hit the bridge and then crashed into the river.

Dashboard cam showing the moments before a TransAsia plane crash in Taipei

Terrifying images … A montage of dashboard cam images showing the moments before the TransAsia Airways plane crash in New Taipei City. Source: Missxoxo168 / Twitter Source: Twitter 

The plane’s wing also hit a taxi, the driver of which was injured, on the freeway just before it crashed into the river, Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS reported.

The driver survived the incident and was taken to hospital for further medical treatment

Close call ... a taxi was clipped by the plane as it crashed. Picture: TVBS/YouTube

Close call … a taxi was clipped by the plane as it crashed. Picture: TVBS/YouTube Source: Supplied 

A TransAsia media office declined comment on possible reasons for the crash. Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration also was also unable to discuss possible causes of the crash.

The New Taipei City Fire Department has dispatched five rescue teams, equipped with speed boats, to the accident site near the Nanyang Bridge in Xizhi district, CNA said.

The aeroplane was flying to the offshore island of Kinmen and had only just left Taipei Songshan Airport when the accident happened.

TransAsia Airways was involved in another fatal crash less than a year ago, while attempting to land at Magong Airport on July 23. Forty-seven of the 58 people on board the ATR-72-500 were killed, and seven seriously injured when the plane crashed at the end of the runway and slid into residential buildings.

Prior to that, the Taiwan based airline was involved in a runway collision with a truck in March 2003. All 175 passengers and crew survived the incident at Tainan Airport when the truck trespassed the tarmac into the path of the A320.

Survuvors ... passengers from the TransAsia ATR 72-600 turboprop plane. Picture: AFP

Survivors … passengers from the TransAsia ATR 72-600 turboprop plane. Picture: AFP Source: AFP 

An injured passenger ... is escorted by emergency personnel up the river bank. Picture: A

An injured passenger … is escorted by emergency personnel up the river bank. Picture: AFP Source: AFP 

SOURCE:::: http://www.news.com.au

Natarajan

 

 

History of ICC Cricket World Cup…

NatarajanLeave a comment

The stage is set for the 11th ICC World Cup, which will be staged Down Under from February 14 to March 29.

India will be looking to add to their triumphs of 1983 and 2011, while Australia, co-hosts with New Zealand, are gunning for a fifth title in the 50-overs-a-side quadrennial tournament, having won it in 1987, 1999, 2003 and 2007.

For a recap of the previous World Cups click on the images below.


1975 World Cup  

 


1979 World Cup  

 


1983 World Cup  

 


1987 World Cup  

 


1992 World Cup  

 


1996 World Cup  

 


1999 World Cup  

 


2003 World Cup 

 


2007 World Cup    

 


2011 World Cup  

SOURCE:::: http://www.rediff.com

Natarajan

Dare Devil Duo is the First to Scale the Niagara Falls… !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

Last week, two daredevil Canadian climbers, Will Gadd and Sarah Hueniken, attempted the impossible: scaling Niagara’s 51m-high, frozen falls. And it only took them just under an hour to do it.

Niagara Falls, the collective term for the three waterfalls that dominate the border between New York state and Ontario, Canada, flows at a rate of up to two million litres per second. Because of that immense volume, the falls almost never stop moving. In fact, other than a 30-hour dry spell on 29 March 1848, when an ice jam in the upper river blocked the regular flow of water, it was nearly unheard of until early 2014, when the falls came to a near standstill twice during the extreme North American cold wave. (And while some would argue that the falls froze in the early 1900s, the credibility of that commonly shared photograph has beenproven questionable.)

It’s important to note that even in these three rare instances, the falls never completely froze over, making attempts to climb up the falls extremely dangerous. The water, albeit in smaller volumes, continues to flow, forming unstable layers of snow, slush and ice (see 2:08 when Gadd sinks his hooks into a piece of snow that simply crumbles away). It’s a feat we wouldn’t suggest trying at home. Still, for Gadd and Hueniken, being the first climbers to travel up Niagara Falls is a good way to go down in history. “There’s only one Mount Everest, there’s only one Niagara Falls and I feel really lucky because that ended a lot of hard work by a lot of people and I got to climb something to me that was really amazing and really beautiful and a whole lot of fun,” Gadd said in an interview with ABC.

In the winter, videos like the above are one of the only ways to get a sense of the falls’ majesty up close. Visitors have been banned from walking on the bridges formed by the ice since 1912; it’s illegal to climb the falls on either side of the border; and the boat tour on the New York side of the Falls, the Maid of the Mist, shuts down after October because of icy conditions, usually reopening in April or May.

SOURCE:::: http://www.bbc.com

Natarajan

Picture of the Day… ” Cloud Streets in the Sea…” !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

Ice, wind, cold temperatures and ocean waters combined to created dramatic cloud formations over the Bering Sea in late January, 2015. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over the region and captured this true-color image on Jan. 23.

The frozen tundra of Russia lies in the northwest of the image, and snow-covered Alaska lies in the northeast. Sea ice extends from the land well into the Bering Sea. Over the dark water bright white clouds line in up close, parallel rows. These formations are known as “cloud streets”.

Air blowing over the cold, snowy land and then over ice becomes both cold and dry. When the air then moves over relatively warmer and much moister water and lead to the development of parallel cylinders of spinning air. On the upper edge of these cylinders of air, where the air is rising, small clouds form. Where air is descending, the skies are clear. This clear/cloudy pattern, formed in parallel rows, gives the impression of streets.

The clouds begin over the sea ice, but they primarily hang over open ocean. The streets are neat and in tight rows closest to land, while further over the Bering Sea the pattern widens and begins to become more random. The rows of clouds are also not perfectly straight, but tend to curve. The strength and direction of the wind helps create these features: where the wind is strongest, nearest to shore, the clouds line up most neatly. The clouds align with the wind direction, so the direction of the streets gives strong clues to prevailing wind direction.

Image Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC 

SOURCE:::: http://www.nasa.gov

Natarajan

Image of the Day… View From Space…India by Night and By Day …

NatarajanLeave a comment

Acquired January 12, 2015. Image credit: NASA

Acquired September 14, 1966. Image credit: NASA

The night image of the Indian peninsula was taken from the International Space Station (ISS) on January 15, 2015. It shows with clarity and surprising detail the human geography of cities of different sizes, such as Kochi and Coimbatore, and the highways that connect cities. The almost unpopulated hilly escarpment, known as the southern Ghats, is a dark zone parallel to the coast. A patch of clouds are illuminated by a nearly-full moon.

The daylight photo was taken by the crew of the Gemini 11 spacecraft back in September 1966. You can see coastlines and land surface color, but no details of human geography. This classic view was taken on an early space flight at a similar altitude to that of the ISS. Patterns of bright white cloud cover much of the land surfaces of India and Sri Lanka.

Bottom line: Two astronaut photos, one from 2015 and one from 1966, show the southern peninsula of India by night and by day.

Via NASA Earth Observatory

SOURCE::::: http://www.earthskynews.org

Natarajan