MAGNITUDE 4.5 RED SEA
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000rrqs#summary
Subject To Change
Depth: 14 km
Distances: 182km (113mi) SW of Al Qunfidhah, Saudi Arabia
211km (131mi) NE of Nak’fa, Eritrea
242km (150mi) SW of Al Majaridah, Saudi Arabia
243km (151mi) WNW of Farasan, Saudi Arabia
296km (184mi) NNE of Asmara, Eritrea
Mining Landslide Complicates Rescue; Workers Missing in Honduras
A landslide in southern Honduras has blocked the entrance to a mine in which eight people have been trapped for more than a week, according to a report from BBC.
Eleven miners in total were trapped on July 2 when an initial landslide encased them in an illegal gold mine in El Corpus, about 70 miles from the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. Three of the 11 were freed on July 4, but the eight have not been found.
The official search was called off after the most recent landslide, but locals continued to dig despite the threat of further landslides. The official status of the trapped miners is uncertain.
“The search and rescue operation has been definitively suspended due to the danger of further landslides in the mine,” Ulises Alvarodo, an emergency services spokesman, told Reuters. “We can’t risk more lives.”
When the three miners were rescued last week, the emergency crews reported smelling foul odors emanating from the 260-foot-deep mine, indicating that the remaining eight could be dead. Locals haven’t given up hope in finding the miners, according to news reports.
El Corpus is in an area that was an epicenter of gold mining for Spanish colonists centuries ago, Reuters reported. An increase in gold prices in recent times has prompted Hondurans to return to that business.
Informal — and illegal — mines are common in this part of Honduras, the BBC reported. Local officials estimate that there are around 50 mines in the area around the troubled mine. The workers use ladders to descend into the earth with pickaxes, looking for gold.
That area is prone to earthquakes and landslides, making mining a risky occupation. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez on Tuesday said he would like to see locals find alternative employment and said he would support programs to put them in such positions.
Severe storm floods many homes on Flagstaff’s East Side, Arizona, USA
NAZ Today reporter Mason Agnew visits the Lower Greenlaw neighborhood in East Flagstaff to see the damage from a Tuesday-night storm. Heavy rain and hail flooded 30 homes. Nine families, with a total of 31 people were evacuated as a result of the storm. Up to 2 inches of rain, and a quarter inch of hail reportedly fell over a short period of time. Some witnesses reported seeing up to four feet of hail piled on roadsides.
Homeowner Sunny McKay compared the storm to a blizzard and hurricane combined in one event. Another resident, Ed Skiba, compared his street to a rushing rivers. Skiba also showed NAZ Today his garden, which had been completely destroyed by the storm.
Violent storm hits Bulgaria’s Lovech, leaves 11 villages without electricity
In the latest blow from heavy weather in Bulgaria this summer, a violent storm broke over the town of Lovech on July 10, bringing a barrage of rain and hail and leaving 11 villages without power.
Local media reports said that streets were flooded and first reports said that there was no information yet on people injured.
Bulgaria’s weather office said that storms also raged east of Botevgrad, in the areas of the Pass of the Republic and Pleven, while storm winds also hit Bulgaria’s Danubian city of Rousse.
Weather forecasters said that further storms were expected in central and northern Bulgaria before midnight on July 10.
The maelstrom that struck Lovech came two days after a severe hailstorm struck Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia, causing damaged estimated to run into many millions of leva, and a few weeks after heavy weather caused deadly floods in Varna’s Asparouhovo area, Dobrich and Veliko Turnovo.
Following a meeting of the crisis staff, an emergency was declared in Lovech, mayor Mincho Kazandzhiev said.
In places in the town, the water reached more than a metre, disrupting traffic and damaging cars. Trees had been brought down and some buildings in the lower-lying parts of the town had been flooded, local authorities said.
A Europa League first-qualifying round football match between the Litex and Veris teams was postponed after the pitch was inundated.
Counting in the summer rain and hail storms that have hit Varna, Dobrich, Veliko Turnovo and Sofia in recent weeks, damage already runs into several million leva.
Tropical disturbance moving toward Mariana Islands
Severe storm Kills Four in New York State and Child at Maryland Camp, USA
Severe storms brought destruction and tragedy across the Northeast on Tuesday evening, with one child dying at a Maryland summer camp and a tornado killing four people, including a 4-month-old baby, in an upstate New York town.
At about 7:15 p.m., a violent tornado — packing winds of about 100 mph — ripped through Smithfield, near Syracuse, New York, officials said. It destroyed four homes and damaged another three buildings, as well as a barn, Madison County Sheriff Allen Riley said at a news conference Wednesday after touring the aftermath.
Killed in the weather event were Kimberly Hillard, 35, and her 4-year-old daughter, Paris Newman; Virginia Warner, 70; and Arnie Allen, 53, whose home was lifted from its foundation. One of the homes was thrown about 150 yards, Riley said.
The last twister to hit Madison County was in 2009, according to the National Weather Service, and Tuesday’s tornado could prove to be the deadliest ever in New York state.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo described the scene of destruction in Smithfield as if “a bomb exploded.”
“When there’s a loss of human life like in this situation, then nothing else matters,” Cuomo said. “Houses we can replace. Buildings we can replace. When you lose a 4-month-old baby, there’s no damage like that.”
Meteorologists said the tornado could be as high as an F2 on the Fujita scale, with winds at 113 mph to 157 mph, but they were continuing to assess the damage.
Damage was also widespread in the towns of Sullivan and Lenox in Madison County, New York, the sheriff’s office said.
In a separate incident in Maryland, around 100 children were in an outdoor pavilion at River Valley Ranch, a Christian camp north of Baltimore, when the storm hit. Organizers said they tried to get everyone to shelter but the high winds were upon them before all the children were safe — one of the nine children hurt died from their injuries.
“Our staff noticed a storm that was quickly approaching and immediately began moving the campers from the pavilion to the nearest secure building,” said a post on the camp’s Facebook page. “The storm came upon them in a very quick and severe manner before all the children reached the building.”
The storm knocked down trees in its path and the camp’s executive director, Jon Bisset, confirmed “with a very heavy heart” that one child was killed.
The identities of the children were not released, but Lineboro Volunteer Fire Department told the Baltimore Sun that all the kids who were hurt were 13 or younger and have been taken to hospital for treatment.
The storm also brought power outages, with some 42,000 customers in the Baltimore region in the dark as of Tuesday night, the newspaper reported.
The storms were thrown up by a system not uncommon in the northeast for this time of year, said Guy Walton, lead forecaster at The Weather Channel. But save for a few showers, both New York and Maryland were expected to be out of the woods with much calmer weather forecast for Wednesday, he added.
Storms could still persist from Virginia to North Carolina throughout the day, although Walton said these are not expected to bring such severe winds.
Powerful typhoon causes 3 dead 47 injured in Japan
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