Disasters

"Nine years ago, a rice paddy in eastern Java suddenly cleaved open and began spewing steaming mud. Before long, it covered an area twice the size of Central Park; roads, factories and homes disappeared under a tide of reeking muck. Twenty lives were lost and nearly 40,000 people displaced, with damages topping $2.7 billion."

"President Barack Obama declared a major disaster Tuesday in a Northern California wildfire that has destroyed at least 1,200 homes and killed at least three people."

"Syria's civil war has prompted the first withdrawal of seeds from a 'doomsday' vault built in an Arctic mountainside to safeguard global food supplies, officials said on Monday."

"California’s historic drought is in its fourth year and gloom-and-doom scenarios of its impact on everything from killing the state’s vegetation and triggering bug infestation to destroying farming jobs have been trickling in daily."

"President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the nation’s rail safety agency told lawmakers Thursday that the agency would hold railroads to a year-end deadline to install collision-avoidance technology even if it meant that freight and passengers could be left stranded."

"A long-delayed rule to strengthen safety requirements for pipelines that move oil and other hazardous liquids will be unveiled this month following a recent surge in accidents, the U.S. government's pipeline safety administrator said Friday."

"California fire officials say at least 1,400 homes have been destroyed by two Northern California wildfires."

"Rescuers searched for a 6-year-old boy and a hiker missing on Wednesday after flash floods in southern Utah killed at least 18 people in a national park and a small town on the Arizona border."

"Strong aftershocks rippled through Chile on Thursday after a magnitude 8.3 earthquake that killed at least eight people and slammed powerful waves into coastal towns, forcing more than a million people from their homes."

"A third person was confirmed dead on Wednesday in the massive California wildfires that have destroyed more than 800 homes and forced the evacuation of 20,000 people, but crews appeared to turn a corner against the blazes as rain fell over the region."