The 1843 Whanganui earthquake occurred on 8 July at 16:45 local time with an estimated magnitude of 7.5 on the Mw scale.[1][2] The maximum perceived intensity was IX (Violent) on the Mercalli intensity scale, and possibly reaching X (Extreme).[1] The epicentre is estimated to have been within a zone extending 50 km northeast from Whanganui towards Taihape. GNS Science has this earthquake catalogued and places the epicentre 35 km east of […]

The Raetihi forest fire was a catastrophic fire that occurred on 18–20 March 1918, in and around Raetihi, Horopito and Ohakune in the North Island of New Zealand.[1] The fire almost destroyed the townships of Raetihi and Ohakune, killed thousands of sheep and cattle and destroyed areas of native forest in the North Island Volcanic Plateau of New Zealand. Origin of the fire The area around Horopito where

The 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake measured 6.5 on the moment magnitude scale and struck the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand at 1.42 pm on 2 March.[3] The hypocentre was at a shallow depth of 8 km. The epicentre was 2.24 kilometres (1.39 mi) south-south-east of the town of Matatā, and 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north-north-west of Edgecumbe, on the Rangitaiki Plains (the floodplain of the Rangitaiki River, the Tarawera River and the Whakatāne River). It was the

The 1979 Tumaco earthquake occurred at 02:59 local time on 12 December with a moment magnitude of 8.2 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The epicenter was just offshore from the border between Ecuador and Colombia, near the port city of Tumaco. It triggered a major tsunami, which was responsible for most of the estimated 300–600 deaths. The hardest hit area was Colombia’s Nariño Department.[2] Tectonic

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating and deadly tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $186.3 billion (2022 USD) in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area.[1] Katrina was the twelfth tropical cyclone, the fifth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was also the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in

On 30 July 2014, a landslide occurred in the village of Malin in the Ambegaon taluka of the Pune district in Maharashtra, India. The landslide, which hit early in the morning while residents were asleep,[3] was believed to have been caused by a burst of heavy rainfall, and killed at least 151 people.[4] Rains continued after the landslide making rescue efforts difficult. Cause The landslides

The blizzard and flood of 1863 was a series of consecutive natural disasters in Central Otago in New Zealand’s South Island. In the early 1860s the area was in the midst of a gold rush. From July to August 1863 the gold fields suffered from a combination of floods, snowstorms, and blizzards that caused heavy loss of life among the gold miners.

The solar storm of 2012 was a solar storm involving an unusually large and strong coronal mass ejection that occurred on July 23, 2012. It missed Earth with a margin of approximately nine days, as the equator of the Sun rotates around its own axis with a period of about 25 days.[1] The region that produced the outburst was thus not

The 2013 Seddon earthquake measured 6.5 on the Mww scale and was centred in New Zealand’s Cook Strait, around 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of the town of Seddon in Marlborough. The earthquake struck at 5:09:30 pm on Sunday 21 July 2013 (05:09 UTC) at a depth of 13 kilometres (8 mi), according to Geonet.[2] The United States Geological Survey also measured the quake at 6.5, at a depth of 17