Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet (2013 Year In Review)

Earthquakes
Two villages in western Iran's Bushehr province were virtually leveled on April 9 by a 6.3 magnitude quake that killed 37 people.
*     At least 850 people were killed on Sept. 24 in Pakistan's Balochistan province by a 7.7 magnitude quake that caused a new island to emerge in the Arabian Sea.
*     The most powerful temblor of the year, registering a magnitude of 8.3 on May 24, was felt in Moscow, more than 4,000 miles from the epicenter off the Kamchatka Peninsula.
*     Areas around the Philippine island province of Bohol were devastated on Oct. 15 by a 7.2 magnitude quake that killed 222 people and injured nearly 1,000 others.
*     China's most deadly earthquake in three yearsrocked central Sichuan on April 20, killing 193 people and injuring more than 15,000 others.
Record Twister
Moore, Okla., was hit on May 20 by EF5 tornado that left 24 people dead and destroyed 1,150 homes.  Entire subdivisions were obliterated, but early warning is being credited for the remarkably low death toll.  Less than two weeks later, on May 31, the widest tornado ever recorded in the United States hit the nearby Oklahoma City area at rush hour, killing 19.
Health Alert
The World Health Organization warned that the SARS-like coronavirus MERS could spread around the world from where it emerged on the Arabian Peninsula in Sept. 2012.  Symptoms include fever and a cough, which could lead to pneumonia and kidney failure. At least 66 people have ddied from infection, mainly in and around Saudi Arabia.
Tropical Cyclones
A massive international relief effort was launched after the world's strongest tropical cyclone ever to make landfall devastated parts of the central Philippines.  Typhoon Haiyan hit the southwestern tip of Samar Island on Nov. 8 with maximum sustained winds of 195 mph.  More than 6,000 people were dead in its wake.
*     Cyclone Phailin became the strongest storm ever recorded to make landfall in India when it struck the state of Odisha on Oct. 12.  A mass evacuation of coastal areas kept the death toll relatively low at 44.
*     Typhoon Man-yi unleashed unprecedented flooding across Japan on Sept. 16.  It was one of seven tropical cyclones to directly affect the country this year.  Some triggered enough rainfall to flush contamination from the Fukushima nuclear disaster zone into other areas.
Volcanoes
Sumatra's Mount Sinabung forced nearly 18,000 people from their homes during violent eruptions from October through December, which destroyed thousands of acres of crops.
*     The world's largest volcano was found submerged beneath the western Pacific, covering about 120,000 square miles of seabed.
*     A surge of searing volcanic debris on Aug. 10 killed six people who were sleeping on a beach on the tiny Indonesian island that is home to Mount Rokatenda volcano.
Atacama Flurry
An area known as one of the driest places on Earth received a rare snowfall and flood-producing rains during late August.  It was the heaviest precipitation parts of Chile's Atacama Desert had seen in three decades.
A Global Blast
A meteor exploding over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on Feb. 15 created a blast equivalent to 460 kilotons of TNT, injuring nearly 1,500 people.  Most of the injuries were due to shattered, falling or blown-in glass.  More than 7,700 buildings were damaged as the fireball entered the atmosphere at 41,000 mph.  The blast wave circled the world twice.
New Life Form
French scientists said they discovered two new viruses so different from anything ever before seen on Earth that some have said they might as well have come from outer space.  The new "Pandoravirus" species are so named because "opening" them has spawned so many questions about the nature of life.
Warming Not Paused
The leveling off of Earth's surface warming since 1998 is being attributed to the world's oceans absorbing most of climate change's excess heat.  Scientists caution that global warming has not paused, but "is merely manifested in different ways" for a while.
Roach Escape
At least 1.5 million cock-roaches escaped a breeding facility in eastern China's Jiangsu province during late August, infesting nearby farmland and homes.  Locals said they feared outbreaks of disease from the "jailbreak."  Roach rancher Wang Pengsheng had been raising the insects so their extracts could be used in traditional Chinese medicine.