category: disasters

Zabriskie explosions

An Antonioni mashup on Youtube: ‘Blow-up’ sequences from Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Zabriskie Point” (1970) cut-up + layed-down to the original soundtrack:

Exploding Nano Wires

This image of “Nano-Explosions” won first prize in at the November 2007 Materials Research Society (MRS) “Science As Art” competition.

Exploding Nano Wires

“Nano-Explosions Color-enhanced scanning electron micrograph of an overflowed electrodeposited magnetic nanowire array (CoFeB), where the template has been subsequently completely etched. It’s a reminder that nanoscale research can have unpredicted consequences at a high level. (Image: Fanny Beron, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, Canada)”

News helicopters collide, killing four

Over downtown Phoenix, while covering a police chase, from CNN.com this afternoon:

news choppers crash

Human drama in Beirut

The human drama continues, 27 days into this madness. This from CNN.com:

Beirut after Israeli airstrike

Caption: “The aftermath tonight of an airstrike in Beirut.”

Bombing Beirut

Beirut bombed again

A week into yet another war, and the horror just keeps coming. Here is another beautiful photo of a decidedly unbeautiful thing, courtesy CNN.com.

Some people, with more moral clarity than me, may be able to not see the beauty in the horror, but I can’t help seeing it. Besides, there are no moral absolutes, and it’s the illusion that such absolutes exist as truth that fuels so much hatred and violence in the name of upholding those absolutes. And that’s really sickening, if you think about it, because it pretty much means we’re all doomed.

Isreal-Hezbollah-Lebanon Conflict-War-Hell

Lebanese Bridge Bombed

Isreal and Hezbollah are intent on destroying each other, and they’re going to take Lebanon down with them. Photo from CNN.com.

Greenland icemelt

Greenland Glacier Melt

Beautiful isn’t it? Enjoy it while it’s here. According to a new story out today about the earth being hotter than it has ever been in at least 400 years, CNN.com captioned this picture, “A newspaper reports this glacier off Greenland has receded 3 miles in two years.”

Hike up your pants, it’s going to get wet.

Indonesia’s Mount Merapi erupting

Mount Merapi erupting

From CNN.com this morning:

11,000 evacuated as Mount Merapi shoots out lava

Some 11,000 villagers around Indonesia’s Mount Merapi volcano were evacuated as lava and superheated clouds of gas poured down its upper slopes, officials said. The mountain’s lava dome has swelled in recent weeks, raising fears that it could suddenly collapse and send clouds of fast-moving gas and debris into populated areas.

Indonesia’s Mount Merapi volcano near eruption

Mount Merapi Volcano

From CNN.com this morning:

More than 20,000 people have been urged to evacuate their homes ahead of an “imminent” eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Merapi. A lava dome forming at the peak of one of the nation’s most dangerous and active volcanoes has triggered fresh concerns. Authorities are going door to door on Saturday to encourage residents to leave the densely populated slopes.

Merapi Volcano

Oil pipeline explosion in Lagos, Nigeria

Lagos Nigeria Explosion

From CNN.com this morning:

Up to 200 people died today in an oil pipeline explosion on the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria, the state commissioner of police said. “You can see the corpses. Some are burned to ash,” the police commissioner told Reuters. “It seems these people were literally incinerated, almost instantly,” CNN’s Jeff Koinange reports.

« Home | disasters