According to the US navy's warning center, JTWC, in Honolulu, winds from this typhoon were gusting at up to 235mph.

This would make it the fourth most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded and possibly the strongest to have ever hit land.

"We saw bodies everywhere," he said. Some were floating in the water, others in a schoolyard.
He said trees were uprooted for miles around, roads were impassable and power lines were down.

A weakened but still powerful Haiyan was still churning through the South China Sea toward Vietnam, which was evacuating tends of thousands of people from its coast. Haiyan has sustained winds of 100 mph and due to strike Vietnam by Monday morning.

EMP weapons are used to damage to electronic equipment. At higher energy levels, an EMP event can cause more widespread damage including to aircraft structures and other objects.

The huge solar storm occurred late Sunday at 10:03 p.m. EDT (0203 Oct. 28 GMT). It registered as an X-class solar flare — the most powerful type of flare the sun has — and followed two back-to-back X-flares that erupted from the sun on Friday (Oct. 25).

A deadly super-cyclone in 1999 killed more than 10,000 people in Orissa.

Yosemite fire "poses every challenge there can be"
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Western US states are baking in an extended heat wave, with temperatures threatening to break the all-time high recorded on Earth.
In Phoenix, Arizona, the mercury hit 47C (116F) on Friday, and in the desert of Death Valley, California, the thermometer approached 51C.

That is about 200 times more distant than the asteroid "near-miss" that occurred in February - but Friday's passing space rock is more than 50,000 times larger.

“Governments and corporations are used to dealing with crises by experiencing them and gradually learning how to respond. EMP and severe space weather are . . . a black swan event, which is not effectively survivable.”

Emergency workers this morning searched feverishly for survivors in the rubble of homes, schools and a hospital in an Oklahoma City suburb ravaged by a massive Monday afternoon tornado feared to have killed up to 91 people and injured well over 200 residents.

The news about the solar flares comes after a big flare was unleashed Feb. 9 in the direction of the Earth. The 2:30 a.m. flare sparked a violent sun eruption that hurled a wave of charged particles toward Earth at speeds approaching 1.8 million miles per hour.

The best way for most of us to watch asteroid 2012 DA14 come within 17,200 miles of Earth on Friday, and then recede harmlessly into the cosmos, is to fire up your Web browser and watch the show online.

The Earth is safe from the giant asteroid Apophis when it flies extremely close to our planet in 2029, then returns for seconds in 2036, NASA scientists announced today (Jan. 10). The chances of an impact in 2036 are less than one in a million, they added.

“The concern of a strong solar flare in the direction of Earth is legit. The possibility that such a Sun burst could hit Earth could cause extensive damage as it would charge-up our electrical equipment and destroy them,”

According to the Palmer Drought Index – which covers 113 years and is used for historical comparison purposes -- the worst drought ever recorded was in July 1934, when 79.9 percent of the continental U.S. was affected.

As high as the global losses were in 2012 they were still less than 2011 when the cost hit as high as $400 billion due to major earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand and severe floods in Thailand.