they shall never be broken.**
Albert Camus
LARGEST QUAKES -
Live Seismograms - Worldwide (update every 30 minutes)
This morning -
None 5.0 or larger.
Yesterday -
1/13/13 -
5.4 TARAPACA, CHILE
5.3 NEAR S COAST OF NEW GUINEA, PNG.
5.5 GULF OF CALIFORNIA
5.0 SOUTHERN ALASKA
5.0 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.0 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
$1.4 billion not aiding Haiti - Saturday was the third anniversary of the massive and devastating quake that killed more than 250,000 people and destroyed much of the capital of Port-au-Prince. In minutes, Haiti was forever changed when the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck on Jan. 12, 2010.
Three years later, the devastation is often more visible than the progress that has been made. “The further people get away from the earthquake and (continue) hearing (about) all the money that was raised, they think everything's fine — and it's not!” Close to 360,000 people still live in the tent cities set up as emergency shelters after the quake.
MYSTERY BOOMS -
Tennessee - No Ready Answers, But Many Questions. No one seems to have a definitive explanation for the baffling booms that have been heard across sections of Greene County and the region over the past week. Reports of similar loud noises have been reported across the U.S. Booms rumbled through parts of Greene County last weekend and again in mid-week. People living elsewhere in the Tri-Cities area also reported hearing the booms.
Indiana - A series of mysterious late-night booms that have awakened residents and fueled online speculation have so far perplexed officials searching for the source of the sounds. Monday's booms were heard mostly on Evansville's east side and in adjacent Warrick County, including Boonville. Additional reports of similar loud noises were logged Tuesday night.
An Evansville-area resident said he's heard the booms and the first of them, just before midnight Monday, was so loud it shook his home. "I was asleep, and it woke me up. It rattled the windows and the house and everything." Authorities from several agencies have investigated the booms but haven't had any luck tracking down their source.
A group of meteorologists at the National Weather Service's Paducah, Ky., office couldn't offer any weather-related explanations for the booms. And Vectren Corp. spokeswoman said the company has no record of any blown transformers in any of the areas where the sounds were reported Monday and Tuesday night. But several Vectren workers had asked a supervisor if a blown transformer was a cause of any of the sounds.
The booms have stirred up plenty of speculation. "We've been more or less listening to the chatter over the radios and what's going on Facebook and Twitter and everything else to see what other people are saying." The booms have fueled rampant speculation on social media, with theories ranging from a blown power transformer to a meth explosion or a sonic boom from some sort of aircraft. Others have speculated the noises could be mine blasts at a nearby coal mine.
But Evansville-based Vigo Coal, which operates in Boonville, said its permit prohibits blasting work from dusk to dawn. "Somebody out there knows. Now it's just who is going to step up and say, 'Yeah, we know what's going on,' or 'Yeah, it's our fault."
Indianapolis Booms: Strange Lights & Explosions - There are several online reports of a series of strange events that have been transpiring above the Indianapolis skies. Lights and loud explosions have been frightening residents for the last few days and nobody is coming forward with an explanation. Southwestern Indiana authorities are trying to determine the source of mysterious late-night booms.
An alleged video shot during the moment when one of these thunderous explosions were heard was uploaded to YouTube. The video shows a string of colorful orbs floating in the dark sky just after midnight on January 7th, 2013. "I couldn’t verify the authenticity of the video, but if it’s real, it sounded terrifying." .
Published on Jan 8 - "A series of mysterious booms over Indianapolis around 12:14 am on jan 7th 2013. I say three big ones total. when we heard the first one a few minutes before, i grabbed my phone because of all the sirens. the lights would have been in the northeast direction. I live in 46th & Sherman area. Last boom shook our house so hard it cracked a window. I don’t know if these are planes, Missiles or UFOs but my family was terrified." (video)
VOLCANOES -
Volcano Webcams
Volcano activity of Saturday, January 12.
HIGH WAVES -
Indonesia - Stranded crew remain adrift due to extreme weather. Fifteen crew members of the KM Tirta Samudra XXI ship, who have been drifting on a lifeboat near Karimun Jawa Island since Friday, remained unreachable as of Saturday night due to extreme weather and high waves.
TROPICAL STORMS -
In the South Indian Ocean -
- Tropical Cyclone 08s (Narelle) was located approximately 310 nm southwest of Learmonth, Australia.
- Tropical cyclone Emang was located approximately 525 nm east-southeast of Diego Garcia.
EXTREME HEAT & DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE -
Australia -
This week's burst of catastrophic bushfires in Australia continues a run of extreme weather events that, aside from the toll in human suffering, is pushing up the cost of doing business in the Australian agricultural sector.
New South Wales - Twenty-eight homes have been destroyed by a fire in northern NSW, with fears that number will rise.
Tasmania begins road to bushfire recovery - Tasmania's bushfire taskforce says it could take up to two years to rebuild devastated communities.
Bushfires can be prevented - Australia creates bushfire hazards by converting too much forest and grassland into national parks, a researcher says.
The Queensland premier says it's "very convenient" to blame climate change for conditions that have always occurred in Australia. He made the comment after the federal Nationals Leader said it was "utterly simplistic" to draw a link between climate change and Australia's recent heatwave and bushfire crisis. But last week, the federal government's Climate Commission said the heatwave and bushfires had been exacerbated by global warming.
"It's very convenient to blame things that have happened in this country for millennia on climate change. Remember 'I love a sunburnt country' ... it talks about 'flooding rains, fires' and all those sorts of things. Nothing new."
The Climate Commission says climate change is making heatwaves more frequent and making it more likely they will stay for longer. The same body of climate experts expects extreme fire danger days to rise more than 15 per cent in most of eastern Australia.
