On 28 July 2005, parts of south Birmingham were devastated by a freak tornado.

Five years on, residents and emergency services remember the frightening moment it struck.

Nasir Akhtar was putting up shelves in his home in Alder Road, Balsall Heath, when a loud banging noise began outside and the sky darkened.

“I could hear materials banging against the door,” the 29-year-old teacher said.

“When I looked outside I could actually see debris flying and it went totally dark within about five minutes.

“You could hear car alarms going off and cars had been flung around.

“The windows upstairs popped first, the wardrobe and bed started flying towards the door.

“Then the front window popped downstairs.

“I grabbed my brother-in-law and we ran into the pantry downstairs – it was the only place where there wasn’t glass.

Alder Road in Balsall Heath was one of the worst affected areas

“There was so much noise. I had no idea what was happening. It was so quick our brains could not comprehend it.”

The tornado lasted just a few minutes but caused an estimated £40m of damage in the Moseley, Kings Heath, Balsall Heath and Sparkbrook areas of the city.

Twenty people were injured and taken to hospital as the tornado reached speeds of up to 130mph.

It travelled over a one kilometre path, past 4,400 homes and 617 businesses, lifting off entire roofs and uprooting trees.

There were no deaths – it was about 1430 BST and most people were not at home.

Alder Road in Balsall Heath was the worst affected area.

Mr Akhtar and his family, along with many others, had to evacuate their home and were only able to move back in 13 months later.

The roof had been ripped off and needed to be replaced.

The house has since been redecorated and has new furniture – the only item the family managed to salvage was a bed.

Caroline Ward, owner of the Jon Carrie nursery on School Road, Moseley, was taking care of 23 children aged between two and four, who were playing outside when the tornado began.

“All I seem to remember is that the light went peculiar, it was a peculiar light, it was almost dark but it was not dark,” she said.

“I got worried and got all the children in.

“Within two minutes it was like watching a version of the Wizard of Oz, with the whirlpool going round.

“It took all the toys in the playground – the big plastic house, the trampoline, slides – and the six-foot high fencing.

“I was just very thankful we got the children in because it would have taken the children.”

Firefighters Sean Moore and Rudy Parkes, international search and rescue specialists, were called to help look for casualties.

“To be honest, I thought it was a little bit of a joke at first,” said Mr Moore, from West Midlands Fire Service. “You just don’t get tornados in Birmingham.

“As we made our way there we saw huge great trees lying on the roads which started to hammer home to us how serious it was going to be.”

More than 100 firefighters were deployed, along with 25 fire engines.

“I just could not believe we did not have any deaths,” he said. “If it had been in the middle of the night, we would have had a huge number of deaths for sure.”

More than 160 people were moved to temporary accommodation as Birmingham City Council began a clean-up operation.

Ladypool Road, a busy high street at the heart of Birmingham’s ‘Balti Triangle’ – famed for its Asian cuisine – was hit badly, with many shops and restaurants left in need of urgent repair.

A £1m fund to help these businesses was set up by the council, which included a marketing campaign to encourage people back to the area.

It took Khalid Rafiq, who runs Royal Sweets on Ladypool Road, almost two years to get his business back on track.

The shop has been fully restored and customers have returned but business is still tough.

“I have nearly recovered but it’s not like before the tornado,” he said. “The tornado came and within seconds it took the business down.

“Once you have gone down a bit it takes time to come up again.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-10762750

Torrential hailstorms have decimated oilseed rape crops at Ben Atkinson’s Grange Farm, Rippingdale, Lincolnshire, as well as on neighbouring farms.

“Our rain gauges hold 2.5” of rain and they were overflowing in 10 minutes on Thursday (22 July).

“My father has farmed here for 50 years and he’s never seen a storm like it, or damage like it.”

Yield loss ranged from 0.5t/ha (2.5t/acre) to 4t/ha (1.6t/acre) in oilseed rape crops which would otherwise have yielded up to 5t/ha (2t/acre), he said.

“I’ve got 200ha (500 acres) which has been hit to varying degrees. We’re avoiding the area and trying to get the better crops in first, but it’s also damaged beans to minor degree and has lacerated the leaves on the sugar beet.”

So far, Mr Atkinson had cut 485ha (1200 acres) of oilseed rape, and was very pleased with yields of over 5t/ha (2t/acre) in Cabernet and just under that level for Excalibur.
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“Hopefully that will make up for some of the loss, and better prices will compensate a bit as well. But I think everyone in this area will insure against hail for the rest of time.”

Mr Atkinson still had 364ha (900 acres) of oilseed rape to cut before moving into winter wheat.

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2010/07/27/122494/Hail-decimates-rapeseed-at-Rippingdale.htm

Land in the Tahr desert has gone from virtually worthless to valuable overnight

“I’m going to open up my own hotel,” says Vijay Singh, a man who has just become $60,000 richer after selling some of his farmland; land that is barren desert.

India’s thirst for solar energy has transformed Mr Singh’s property from a dry, dusty inhospitable environment into a sun-drenched power socket that promises much, both for energy companies and for a country that still suffers black-outs.

The Tahr desert spreads 200,000 square kilometres across North West India, and as Dr PC Pande from Rajasthan’s Central Arid Zone Research Institute points out, sun is not in short supply.

“Here in this region we have plenty of solar radiation,” he boasts. “It’s full of sun. Three hundred plus days of sun a year, nine hours a day.”

They will need it.

The government recently launched its National Solar Mission – a $19bn plan to generate 20,000 megawatt of solar electricity by 2022.

At the moment solar power contributes a tiny fraction of that – less than 1% – to the national grid.

An abundance of land

But it is not just the sunshine that is attracting government and private investors to Rajasthan.

The area is also abundant in something else that big power projects need – namely land.

“In this area, there’s a lot of government land available, and a lot of private land also,” says Multan Parihar from real estate agents Raj Landscape.

He has found Rajasthan a very good place to deal in real estate recently.

In the past six months, land prices in parts of the Tahr desert have tripled.

“People don’t do much agriculture here, it’s a waste land. But it can be used for solar power.”

The region’s solar revolution is expected to get underway shortly when one of India’s biggest energy companies – Reliance Industries – switches on its 5 megawatt solar plant in the nearby town of Khimsar.

Soaring energy demands

For the nation’s business leaders, energy projects are a high priority if India’s strong economic growth is to be continued.

“Manufacturing is directly related to energy,” stresses Hari Bhartia, one of India’s most successful industrialists, with an empire spreading across pharmaceuticals, energy and retail.

“I don’t think you can build a manufacturing industry unless you have a stable energy supply. Energy is part of economic growth.”

So, as someone who operates oil and gas fields in India, will Mr Bhartia be investing in some desert?

“No,” he says.

“Today these solar projects are mainly driven through government subsidy. In the longer term these technologies need to become self sufficient”

Despite the caution of some, Mr Singh is confident a bustling city will emerge from the scrub land he once owned, and a steady stream of solar technicians will come to stay in his hotel.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10767039

Farmers in Somerset are warning yields from this year's crops will be poor because there has been so little rain.

Farmers in Somerset are warning yields from this year’s crops will be poor because there has been so little rain.

The county has seen only four inches (10cm) of rain since April compared with May 2009 where there were five inches (12cm) in one month alone.

Mark Pope, who farms near Taunton, said: “Our yields are definitely going to be down on the last two years.

“We won’t know how much until we put the combine into the the field.”

Mr Pope, who is also the county’s National Farmers Union (NFU) spokesman, said his wheat crops were dry and cracked and the roots were just breaking off in the soil.

He said: “If we’d had some rain a fortnight ago that would have been the optimum. We want the sun to come out again – it’s much better if we can have a dry harvest now.

“If there is too much rain now the quality will go out of the crop.”

Jemma Cooper, from the BBC West weather team, said: “We’ve had the driest June for 80 years. We had some heavy showers during July which should have compensated for that a little bit.

“And with high pressure still dominating our weather we are not expecting any significant rainfall for the next week.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-10754029

Destruction after the whirlwind at Cressing Fayre by photographer Colin Haines

A sudden whirlwind lifted tables and sent stalls flying when it struck a village fete in Essex.

Cressing Village Fayre was coming to an end on Saturday when the damage was caused.

One woman was hit on the back of the head by a flying table but no one was seriously injured.

Fair organiser Sue Turner said: “As quickly as it came it disappeared and then people rushed to help.”

She described the scene as the whirlwind blew in: “Visitors around the arena were watching an egg catching competition when it struck one area of the field.

“Gazebos, tables, chairs and contents were lifted into the air and spread over gardens and the school.

“One lady was hit across the back of her head by a flying table, another was tangled in the shreds of her gazebo. It was horrendous but luckily no-one was seriously injured.

“St John Ambulance and Essex Police Community Support Officers helped the organisers to calm the situation and everyone helped to clear away the mangled mess that was left behind.

“We would like to thank everyone who helped and express our sympathy to those that lost so much.”

Chris Bell from WeatherQuest said it was likely to have been a “dust devil” or whirlwind caused by heat.

“Clouds were too high for it to have been a tornado,” he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-10754189

A satellite image has revealed the scale of a vast algal bloom spreading in the Baltic Sea.

The potentially toxic bloom, covering 377,000 sq km, could pose a risk to marine life in the region, warn scientists.

They added that a lack of wind and prolonged high temperatures had triggered the largest bloom since 2005.

The affected area stretches from Finland in the north to parts of Germany and Poland in the south.

The image, captured earlier this month, was recorded by a camera on the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite.

Researchers monitoring the spread of the blue-green algae said such blooms had spread over the Baltic Sea each summer for decades.

They added that fertilizers from surrounding agricultural land were being washed into the sea and exacerbating the problem.

This has led to a process called eutrophication, in which the additional nutrients stimulate rapid growth of phytoplankton – microscopic free-floating marine plants.

This accelerated growth also reduces the amount of oxygen available to other plant and animal species in the affected area; raising fears that it could destabilise fragile marine ecosystems.

As well threatening certain species, blue-green algae can also pose a risk to human health, and officials are advising people not to bathe in areas where the algae is visible.

However, researchers said the current bloom would quickly break up with the arrival of strong winds, as the resulting waves would disperse the algae.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10740097