It seems that the reservoir of the Taum Sauk pumped storage plant in Missouri burst today. The reservoir sits on top of Proffit Mountain, some 800 feet above the hydroelectric plant, and when a section of the reservoir collapsed, it sent a 20 foot crest of water down the Black River, washing away homes and cars in its path.

Details are still unclear, but for more information on the story, you could try the Google News coverage.

Thanks to Ned Mitchell.

This is San Francisco’s popular tourist spot, Pier 39, and covering nearly every square inch of those floating docks in the harbour are hundreds upon hundreds of sea lions. The light coloured patch in the middle-left is the only bit left uncovered by the marine mammals - which you can see much more easily in Google Earth. Although… there seems to be a lot less of them in GE, and it doesn’t look like such a nice day either!

Apparently the only thing missing is the smell…

For any of you unconvinved that these really are sea lions, here’s the proof!

Thanks to Matthew Brown, Michael Lustig, Jeff Burton, Markus and Andy de la Rosa.

This is the Soviet Cenotaph in Treptower Park, Berlin. It was built under orders from Stalin to serve as a memorial to the 20,000 Soviet soldiers that died during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, and features a 13 metre-tall statue of a Russian soldier holding a child and a sword, standing over a broken swastika.

Supposedly the statue reflects an occasion when a Soviet soldier saved a German girl - and it still stands today due to the German agreement that it would retain all Soviet war-memorials in perpetuity, as a condition for the reunification of the divided country.

The Wikipedia page is a little empty, but War-Memorial.net has an excellent pictorial tour of the memorial.

Thanks to Peter.