Environmental Glance
The U.S. Geological Survey, using predictive modeling to estimate the death toll, said it would most likely run into the thousands, with a substantial probability of exceeding 10,000. A website set up to track missing people by leaders from the country's opposition said that about 24,000 people remain unaccounted for, Reuters reported.
The two quakes, with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, struck shortly after 6 p.m. local time. They were two of the strongest quakes to hit Venezuela in more than a century.
Quakes of 7.0 to 7.9 magnitude are considered major, capable of causing severe, widespread damage.
Venezuela is vulnerable to powerful quakes because it’s on the active tectonic boundary between the Caribbean Plate and the South American Plate. The two giant plates grind past each other, building stress across several major faults.
France recorded its hottest day ever Tuesday as an early heat wave gripped Europe, prompting the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum to restrict visiting hours and disrupting school and transportation schedules in multiple countries.
Modern roads in the United States will last for decades. And yet the damage they cause in our national forests is immediate.
American territories are recovering after a category 5 super typhoon hit Western Pacific islands before peak storm season.
Responding to public health concerns about microplastics and pharmaceuticals in the nation's drinking water, the Trump administration for the first time has placed them on a draft list of contaminants maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Towering flash floods and an imminent dam failure in the northern part of Oahu triggered evacuation warnings in Hawaii on Friday, as the state continued contending with a powerful storm this week.
