April 21-27, 2013

Week of April 21 - 27, 2013

April 21, 2013 – NORTH KOREA - North Korea has moved two short-range missile launchers to its east coast, apparently indicating it is pushing ahead with preparations for a test launch.

April 22, 2013 – ARGENTINA - Thousands of residents of the Argentine city of Santiago del Estero in the early hours of Sunday morning caught a glimpse of a suspected meteor that lit up the sky. 

April 22, 2013 – MEXICO – A magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck western Mexico.

 April 22, 2013 – INDONESIA  - Moderate earthquake near Dieng, Volcano, Java, Indonesia.  

April 23, 2013 – CHINA – The death toll in China’s earthquake rose to 193 today with over 12,000 injured in the catastrophic disaster, as rescue work was hampered by rain and 3,000 aftershocks.

April 24, 2013 – CHINA – A new bird flu strain that has killed 22 people in China is “one of the most lethal” of its kind and transmits more easily to humans than another strain that has killed hundreds.

April 24, 2013 – AFGHANISTAN – A moderate earthquake hit Afghanistan Wednesday and its tremors were felt in Kabul, Islamabad and as far away as New Delhi. The U.S. Geological Survey said the 5.6-magnitude earthquake was 65 kilometers deep.

April 24, 2013 – PAPUA, NG – The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says there is no tsunami threat for Hawaii after a strong earthquake near Papua New Guinea. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the 6.5-magnitude quake struck at 1:21.

April 25, 2013 – LATVIA - Set in Dviete, Latvia, near the banks of the Daugava River, there is a mysterious whirlpool churning -- and destroying -- all that enters. Huge chunks of ice? Gone. Floating islands of debris? Annihilated. “Swallowing everything dragged towards its direction,” reads the description by Jānis Astičs, “this monstrous whirlpool looks as if a plug has been pulled from the ground beneath.” Astičs isn't too far off in his analysis, actually. While most whirlpools in nature occur as a result of fast moving currents meeting one another in opposite directions (often caused by ocean tides), the phenomenon in the video shares a lot in common with a draining bathtub. Indeed, a longer version of the same video shows the mysterious “monstrous whirlpool” in Latvia has been formed by water from the swollen river flowing into an inlet on the upstream side of a bridge. All of the debris is funneled under the road on which spectators are standing and flows downstream.

April 25, 2013 – ECUADOR - A landslide swept into a village in northern Ecuador, burying homes and killing at least 14 people, authorities said Wednesday. “There were 14 people killed in a landslide in Tabete” civil defense reported on Twitter, of the town near the Colombian border. After days of heavy rain, the landslide buried homes in tonnes of earth and debris in the town located in Esmeraldas province, said Mayor Ernesto Estupinan of nearby Esmeraldas city.

April 25, 2013 - The Israeli air force shot down a drone approaching the nation's coast today, the Israel Defense Forces said.  "An unmanned aircraft (UAV) was identified approaching the coast of Israel and was successfully intercepted by IAF aircraft five nautical miles off the coast of Haifa," the IDF said in a statement. "This is the second time a UAV has been intercepted in Israeli air space within the past seven months."