An April 2013 avalanche near Salt Lake City that registered a 5.0 on the Richter Scale has been confirmed to be the largest in recorded history.
Researchers with the University of Utah said the slide, which was large enough to bury New York’s Central Park under 66 feet of debris, sent 165 million tons of materials into a large open-pit copper mine.
“We don’t know of any case until now where landslides have been shown to trigger earthquakes,” Jeff Moore, assistant professor of geology and geophysics, told Fox News.
The blessing in the natural disaster is that the mining company that ran the copper mine noticed the shifting of the Earth and evacuated their workers. However, 14 giant trucks were buried by the slide and the company was forced to layoff a large part of their work force.
The force of the slide was strong enough to crack the bedrock under the mine resulting in 16 smaller earthquakes in the region.
The last time New York City faced the cold it’s facing today, Grover Cleveland occupied the Oval Office, Utah was admitted as the 45th state, and the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece.
Central Park in New York registered 4 degrees Tuesday morning passing the previous record of 6 degrees. The temperature on Tuesday was 50 degrees lower than Monday.
Wind chills throughout New York will remain well below zero throughout the next two days.
The weather in New York was so cold that Amtrak had to suspend service because their signals stopped working due to the cold weather.
Other record lows were set throughout the country. Chicago broke a record with -16 degrees, Fort Wayne, Indiana saw -13 degrees. Multiple towns in Oklahoma and Texas reported record lows along with wind chills passing -40 degrees.
A record number of abortion clinics in the United States closed during 2013.
The survey from Operation Rescue says the number of surgical abortion clinics in the United States is down 12 percent in 2013 and down 73 percent from a record high in 1991.
In all, 87 clinics discontinued surgical abortions. Six of the clinics remained open to provide abortion-inducing drugs but 81 clinics completely closed their doors. The total does not include clinics that were closed for significant portions of time in 2013.
The number of clinics that only provide abortion-inducing drugs remained fairly steady at 176, with six documented clinic closures.
Planned Parenthood clinics accounted for 30 percent of surgical abortion clinics and 93 percent of all clinics that offer abortion via drugs only. Planned Parenthood, which receives tax dollars, is responsible for about one third of all abortions in the United States.
NASA scientists report that a new world’s record for lowest recorded temperature has been set in Antarctica.
Analysis of NASA satellite data shows an area of the icy continent at -135.8 degrees Fahrenheit. The new mark shatters the old record of -128.6 degrees. While the record was set in 2010, NASA released the data today in a press release.
Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center said those conditions could easily be deadly to humans.
“I am told that every breath is painful and you have to be extremely careful not to freeze part of your throat or lungs when inhaling,” Scambos said in a statement.
Scambos said the temperature record was only an accidental discovery. His team has been studying unusual cracks on the surface of eastern Antarctica and believed the cracks are “thermal cracks”. Thermal cracks happen when the temperature is so low that snow shrinks to the point the surface cracks.
“The record-breaking conditions seem to happen when a wind pattern or an atmospheric pressure gradient tries to move the air back uphill, pushing against the air that was sliding down,” Scambos said. “This allows the air in the low hollows to remain there longer and cool even further under the clear, extremely dry sky conditions. When the cold air lingers in these pockets it reaches ultra-low temperatures.”
The U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude 7.0 earthquake has struck off the coast of the Falkland Islands.
The quake struck around 2:30 a.m. local time about 195 miles southeast of the Falklands’ capital city Stanley. The depth of the quake was 6.2 miles.
The USGS reported at least four other quakes had preceded the 7.0 quake all measuring more than 5.0 during a two hour period.
Researchers are concerned because the region of the quake is not known for strong seismic activity. Only 15 quakes total over 5.0 magnitude have been recorded in the region during the last 40 years including the 5 today.
The largest quake near to that area was a 6.6 magnitude quake in September 1993.
Philippine officials have officially risen the death toll from Typhoon Haiyan to over 5,000.
Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said that 4,919 people are confirmed dead in the Eastern Visayas region while a civil defense official released a statement adding an additional 290 confirmed dead in the central & southern parts of the country.
Roxas told reporters the situation in the country is beginning to stabilize, as relief workers are able to clear roads to more remote regions.
In addition to the cleared roads, officials say that banks, gas stations and stores are beginning to re-open in damaged regions.
Meteorologists looking at preliminary data say the EF-4 tornadoes that Washington and New Minden, Illinois could be some of the strongest to ever strike the state.
An EF-4 tornado has wind gusts between 166 and 200 miles per hour.
Greg Carbin of the National Weather Service said that Illinois gets violent tornadoes in November about every 7 to 10 years so the storms Sunday cannot be called rare but the strength of the storms is rare.
Illnois has had only 27 EF-4 and 2 EF-5 tornadoes since 1950 and before Sunday none of the strong twisters struck during November.
The storm devastated the town of Washington, Illlnois, cutting an 1/8th mile wide path of destruction through the entire town. Residents Phil and Carmen Jones lost their family home of 40 years in the storm and say they’ll have to start all over at age 75.
Carmen tried to look at the positives.
“We don’t have to rip that wallpaper off now,” she said.
The official death toll from Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines stands at 3,621 Friday morning.
The United Nations issued a report placing the total at over 4,400 but that number conflicts with local officials. However, all sides involved say the total will continue to rise as rescue personnel can reach more villages.
A main road in the devastated city of Tacloban was finally cleared of debris and bodies allowing supplies to be delivered to the city center. However, officials say that there are not enough trucks to deliver the supplies in a timely manner.
Staff from Doctors Without Borders said they visited the village of Guiuan that was destroyed by the storm. They said that the situation there is “bleak” with over 45,000 people without medical supplies, clean water or food.
Military officials say that helicopters from the USS George Washington are flying into parts of the country that still cannot be reached by land vehicles to drop emergency food rations and clean water. They are also evacuating severely wounded residents for transport to hospitals in Manila.
Just five days after Super Typhoon Haiyan ripped through the Philippines, panic is beginning to set in among residents of Tacloban and other destroyed villages.
Eight people were crushed to death when a crowd stormed a rice warehouse near Tacloban. More than 100,000 bags of rice were stolen by the mob before police and military troops were able to quell the riot.
Residents in parts of Tacloban were also digging up underground pipes and smashing them open to find water.
The official death toll continues to climb and stood at 2,275 as of Thursday morning. United Nations workers on the ground are expecting the total to climb significantly despite the Philippine president announcing that only a few thousand likely died in the storm rather than earlier estimates of tens of thousands.
U.S. military personnel have been evacuating people from Tacloban to Manila for medical treatment. Soldiers reported seeing roads with bodies lined up for miles awaiting the government to pick them up for burial.
On Friday morning, the Philippines was hit by one of the strongest storms ever recorded, Super Typhoon Haiyan. The massive storm brought tremendously powerful winds, flash floods, and landslides killing thousands and devastating the area. Here are photographs of the damage Super Typhoon Haiyan has caused.
