Features & Entertainment

Just two years after a terrifying, 7.9-magnitude quake devastated the Sichuan province in China, another tremendous quake rumbled through nearby Qinghai province on April 13. This temblor was less deadly — more than 2,000 people died, compared to 90,000 killed in Sichuan. This quake, though, had quickly followed two other…

The Cumberland River flows directly through downtown Nashville. In a once-in-500-years event, the river crested in May, suddenly overwhelming thousands of Tennesseans with 13 feet of water coming in through windows and forcing them to huddle in attics. The Nashville flood, washing over the center of America’s Music City and…

It’s a tourist’s nightmare: One minute you’re marveling at the breathtaking mountain vistas and polished drystone walls of Machu Picchu‘s Incan ruins, and the next you’re caught in a brutal storm that washes away the only train tracks. You have to spend days sleeping in a train station and paying…

What could be more surreal than a giant hole opening up beneath your feet? Sinkholes are a phenomenon in which groundwater weakens bedrock, causing it to cave during a storm, and they are not uncommon. In fact, in Florida sinkholes are so common that the state is considering creating a…

The monsoons come every July in Pakistan, but the 2010 torrents were the worst in 100 years. By the time the rains subsided, a full one-fifth of the country was underwater — an area of land that, if located in the U.S., would stretch from Minnesota to Texas. So far,…

On February 27, six weeks after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake wreaked havoc on Haiti, an 8.8-magnitude temblor struck just off the coast of Maule in Chile. A tsunami swept through the fishing village of Constitucion and other coastal towns. The quake, with an epicenter 70 miles from the country’s second-largest metropolis,…

Before a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, the Caribbean nation was already holding on by a thread. Haiti struggled with political corruption, desperate poverty, and starvation. Because of overfarming, floods, and deforestation, the country could not feed itself: Just two years ago, hungry Haitians stormed the presidential palace…

The year 2010 will be remembered as one of extremes in nature. Thick blankets of snow brought the United States government to a standstill for a week. Massive floodwaters consumed a full fifth of Pakistan. A relentless heat wave destroyed one-third of Russia’s wheat crop as weeks of wildfires crept…

Miraculously, Eyjafjallajokull took no lives after it erupted on April 14. Still, the Icelandic volcano prompted millions of people around the world to shake their fists at it, while non-Icelandic speakers feared to pronounce its name. This mountain spewed a stream of steam, tiny pieces of rock, and minuscule glass…