• Impact of prolonged power outage on excess deaths in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria

    ByReet Kaur

    Hurricane Maria made landfall near Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, at 10:15 UTC (06:15 LT) on September 20, 2017, leaving 2 975 excess deaths and causing the longest blackout in U.S. history. The storm showed how fragile infrastructure can turn a natural hazard into a mass-casualty disaster. With the grid collapsed for months, hospitals faltered, medicines spoiled, and thousands died not from winds or floods but from the blackout’s cascading effects.

  • 1985 M8.0 Mexico City earthquake and the birth of earthquake early warning

    ByReet Kaur

    When an M8.0 earthquake struck Mexico City at 13:17 UTC (07:17 LT) on September 19, 1985, shaking lasted nearly four minutes and toppled more than 400 buildings, killing over 10 000 people. The disaster revealed how resonant lakebed soils could amplify distant seismic waves into catastrophic motion, a finding that reshaped earthquake science and led to the world’s first public early warning system.

  • Sudden blast of asteroid 2023 CX1 over France reveals new impact risk

    ByReet Kaur

    Asteroid 2023 CX1 fragmented abruptly instead of breaking apart gradually. At a dynamic pressure of 4 MPa, it disintegrated almost instantly, releasing 98% of its total energy in a concentrated region at 28 km (17 miles) altitude. This sudden failure produced a spherical shock wave, unlike the usual cylindrical energy distribution of most fireballs. Calculations…

  • What the Toba super-eruption 74 000 years ago reveals about human survival

    ByReet Kaur

    The Toba super-eruption in present-day Indonesia about 74 000 years ago ejected 2 800 km3 (672 mi3) of ash and formed a 100 x 30 km (62 x 18 miles) wide caldera. Once thought to have nearly wiped out our species, evidence now shows that resilience and adaptability, not collapse, defined humanity’s survival.

  • Hidden tectonic stress along a 250 km (155 miles) Himalayan stretch raises earthquake risk in Uttarakhand

    ByTeo Blašković

    Geoscientists have identified a 250 km (155 miles) locked stretch of the Uttarakhand Himalayas where tectonic stress is building, warning it could unleash a powerful quake with major consequences for the region.

  • Scientists uncover the mystery of toxic “halo” barrels off the Los Angeles coast

    ByRishav Kothari

    Scientists have found that the toxic DDT barrels dumped off the coast Los Angeles, California, have been leaking alkaline waste into the ocean floor. This has drastically changed the ocean floor environment around the barrels, resulting in the ghostly halos around the barrels and creating conditions similar to deep-sea hydrothermal vents and alkaline hot springs.

  • Earth’s axis wobble recorded with unmatched precision

    ByReet Kaur

    Researchers at the Technical University of Munich measured Earth’s axis precession and nutation at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell, Bavaria, over 250 days, achieving 100 times higher precision than previous methods. The ring laser experiment provided sub-hour resolution and immediate results, marking a major advance over the global VLBI network.