Blogs

Please refer to our social site for daily updates on recent hazards around the Pacific Rim and globally.  At the moment, a major hazard is Super Typhoon Haiyan, which is threatening the Philippines and Palau with Cat-5 force.

No secret that I’m fascinated by waves.  Call me Doctor Doom, but the bigger the better.  One source of big ones is asteroid impact. 

I’ve blogged here before about these things  

http://www.openhazards.com/blogs/steve/mystery-meteor

 but the subject merits revisit, especially because today’s tale is fact.  After all, if it is in Wikipedia, it must be…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eltanin_impact

This image of wildfires in New South Wales, Australia was captured by the MODIS intrument on NASA's Aqua satellite. 

Lately I have been blogging over at our social site, where everyone interested in hazards and risk is welcome to open an account, post content, and participate.  Or just visit as an anonymous visitor and read the various postings.  I plan to use the site in my classroom teaching next winter, and it is already being used by some students at UC Davis. 

Major earthquake in the Philippines last night.  The event occurred in the middle of a region of higher probability, but the exact location had a lower probability as shown in the attached images.

An earthquake having moment magnitude 6.1 occurred at 9:40 pm local time.  Located on the boundary of the Carribbean and South American tectonic plates, this event had both thrust (compressional) and strike slip (horizontal slip) components.  As an offshore event, it could be anticipated that there would not be significant damage or injuries.

There are a group of Tropical Cyclones/Depressions in the northwest Pacific area, and one in the Atlantic.  Problem is that with the US Government shutdown, it may not be possible to track them adequately if they become dangerous.  

Last time I asked that you stay tuned for the ‘Worst Dam Disaster in History’.  From the title of this blog you might guess where that happened.  Yep, China.  The year, 1975 – not that long ago really.

From the late 1950’s to mid 1970’s, China went on a dam building binge. Lacking local talent, Russians largely supervised the design, engineering, and construction of 100s of dams. Impoundment and distribution of irrigation water to grow food for the masses drove the frenzy.

Latest reports now indicate that as many as 200+ persons may have died in the disaster.  Contours of earthquake probability show significant changes from yesterday as would be expected.

In the post from 4/16/2013, we discussed the M7.8 earthquake on the Pakistan-Iran-India border.  In today's earthquake, it is reported that 45 persons were killed and more injured.