Photos Show Clouds and Behavior of Animals Before China Earthquake
Tianshui city, Gansu province. A Chinese photographer took this picture 2 hours before the May 12 China earthquake.
2 days before the China earthquake, someone took this video in Linyi, Shandong province, east China.
Source: Wikipedia
Earthquake clouds—In chapter 32 of his work Brihat Samhita, Indian scholar Varahamihira (505 – 587) discussed a number of signs warning of earthquakes: Unusual animal behavior, astrological influences, underground movements of water, and extraordinary clouds occurring a week before the earthquake.
Since 1994, Zhonghao Shou, a retired Chinese chemist living in New York, has made dozens of earthquake predictions based on cloud patterns in satellite images, and claims to have a 70% accuracy. Stress and friction in the ground can vaporize water long before the earthquake happens, according to Shou, and clouds formed through these mechanisms are distinctly shaped. He has identified five different types of earthquake cloud, including “line-shaped”, “feather-shaped”, and “lantern shaped” clouds. He claims that an earthquake will take place within 103 days of the appearence of one of these clouds, and that the average time is 30 days.
Below: 9th,May, thousands frogs cross road near earthquake area.
Source: Associated Press
First, the water level in a pond inexplicably plunged. Then, thousands of toads appeared on streets in a nearby province. Finally, just hours before China's worst earthquake in three decades, animals at a local zoo began acting strangely.
Online commentators say the first sign came about three weeks ago, when large amounts of water suddenly disappeared from a pond in Enshi city in Hubei province, around 350 miles east of the epicenter, according to media reports.
Then, three days before the earthquake, thousands of toads roamed the streets of Mianzhu, a hard-hit city where at least 2,000 people have been reported killed.
Mianzhu residents feared the toads were a sign of an approaching natural disaster, but a local forestry bureau official said it was normal, the Huaxi Metropolitan newspaper reported May 10, two days before the earthquake.
The day of the earthquake, zebras were banging their heads against a door at the zoo in Wuhan, more than 600 miles east of the epicenter, according to the Wuhan Evening Paper.
Elephants swung their trunks wildly, almost hitting a staff member. The 20 lions and tigers, which normally would be asleep at midday, were walking around. Five minutes before the quake hit, dozens of peacocks started screeching.