The Week in Pictures: July 15 - July 22

A firefighter rushes to aid his colleague who ran into trouble amid thick oil as they attempted to fix an underwater pump in Dalian, China, on July 20. Crude poured into the Yellow Sea off a busy northeastern port after a pipeline exploded, sparking a massive 15-hour fire. The two men were helped to shore by rescuers on a boat.

Flashes of lightning illuminate the sky next to a windmill over Lake Scharmuetzel near Bad Saarow, eastern Germany, on July 16.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio signs autographs for admirers as he arrives at the premiere of the mind-warp thriler "Inception," in Tokyo on July 20.

A boy dances in the rain on a street in Havana, Cuba, during a heavy tropical shower July 19.
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Onlookers stand at the site of a train accident at Sainthia in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal on July 19. A speeding passenger train crashed into another waiting at a station, killing more than 60 people.

A North Korean soldier stands in the rain while looking through the window of the U.N. truce village building that sits on the border of the Demilitarized Zone while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were visiting, on July 21 in Panmunjon, South Korea. The DMZ is a strip of land that divides North and South Korea at the 38th parallel.

A couple on a yacht outing off the coast of South Africa get a giant shock when a 40-ton southern right whale jumps out of the ocean and slams into their boat on July 21. The whale destroyed the boat's mast and then returned to the water. The couple were not injured.

Rain falls on an oil sheen on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil well leak off the coast of Louisiana on July 15.

Firefighters walk near flames towering from a pipeline explosion at a Chinese port in Dalian in northern China's Liaoning province on July 17. The massive fire burned for 15 hours before being put out. Officials said no one was killed.

A bird rests on the head of a sheep after a heavy snowfall in the Chilean town of Balmaceda, some 1,000 miles south of Santiago, on July 20. Some cities in the Chilean central and southern provinces have experienced longer and unusual periods of low temperatures and snowfall that have cut off villages and closed airports and roads.

An artisan makes an idol of Hindu elephant god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, inside a workshop in Mumbai, India, on July 19. Idols of Ganesh are made two to three months before the day of Ganesh Chaturthi, a popular religious festival. The idols are taken through the streets in a procession accompanied by dancing and singing, before being immersed in a river.

Sydni Blanchard of Albuquerque, N.M., speeds toward the second barrel during the opening round of the barrel racing event at Frontier Park on July 20 in Cheyenne, Wyo. Blanchard recorded a time of 17.68 seconds during the first event at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo.
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The grandmother of police officer Jose Ramirez grieves over his body after he was killed by gunmen while on patrol in Las Joyas neighborhood in Acapulco, Mexico, on July 17. Three other officers in the vehicle were also killed in the attack.

A boy cools off by jumping into the Sommerbad Olympiastadion public pool on July 20 in Berlin, Germany.
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