Natural Disasters

Four beautiful women, an Israeli hunk, and Bad Mike share a hotel on the wild fringes of Kashmir. They thought their problems ended at lust and love. Then the rivers rose and mountains crumbled. Part one of this series sets the stage for the disaster that was to come.

On March 11, 2011 Japan trembled from the force of a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Fifty-foot tsunamis rocked the northeastern coasts and demolished everything in their path. Homes and automobiles were thrown about like toys, gas lines ruptured, forests and debris burst into flames, and nuclear power plants were pushed to the brink of meltdown.

What follows is the story of those harrowing days of crisis, told by Steven Mendoza, an English teacher from the United States, who lived through the worst natural disaster in Japan’s history, in a city that was claimed by the sea…

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico- The floor of my apartment in San Cristobal de las Casas became suddenly pliable, it shifted smoothly to the east and west. The things on my counter top vibrated gently. I made for the door and stepped out into the courtyard and waited to see if the earthquake would grow worse. [...]

Tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons) may be a trigger for earthquakes, say researchers at the University of Miami. After finding a pattern between large tropical storms in Haiti and Taiwan and earthquakes which occurred there soon afterwards, the researchers claim that the link is causal. “Very wet rain events are the trigger. The heavy rain [...]

REYKJAVIK, Iceland- Iceland has one highway, it circumabulates the country, forming a perfect ring. Not surprisingly, it is come to be called Ring Road, or Route 1, and it covers a distance of roughly 1,300 km. To get between north and south, east and west in Iceland you travel around the coast on this highway [...]

REYKJAVIK, Iceland- Either an excess of geo-thermal heat or a minor volcanic eruption under the Myrdals Glacier in the south of Iceland has caused major flooding in the region. The heat from the volcanic activity within melted parts of the glacier, and the excess water flow has caused rivers to flood their banks. A bridge was [...]

Social media has a value beyond selfies.

The search for Steve Mendoza.

Landslides and Floods in Mexico from Tropical Storm Matthew SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico- The rains fell for four days throughout southern Mexico. It did not fall in torrents — no cats or dogs fell from the sky here — but the rains did fall in a steady drizzle, slow, consistent, throughout four days [...]