The US Geological Survey recorded a 6.1-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Indonesia’s remote Maluku islands on Thursday, but no tsunami warning was given. The powerful earthquake struck at a shallow depth of 31 kilometres (20 miles), about 127 kilometres southwest of Ternate. While shallower quakes are more likely to cause damage, there were no immediate reports of casualties. “There was a decent tremor, but no one panicked,” Ternate resident Nasarudin Amin said. “There have been alerts about the possibility of aftershocks.”
Due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of extreme seismic activity where tectonic plates clash that extends from Japan to Southeast Asia and around the Pacific basin, Indonesia experiences regular quakes.
The 6.2-magnitude quake that hit Indonesia’s Sulawesi island in January killed over 100 people and left thousands homeless, reducing buildings in the seaside city of Mamuju to a tangled mess of twisted metal and chunks of concrete.
In2018, a strong earthquake struck the island of Lombok, followed by several more tremors over the next few weeks, killing over 550 people on the holiday island and nearby Sumbawa. A 7.5-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Palu, Sulawesi island, killed or missing over 4,300 people later that year.
In 2004, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra, triggering a tsunami that killed 220,000 people across the country, including 170,000 in Indonesia. The Boxing Day tragedy was one of the worst natural disasters in history, raising the ocean floor by 15 metres in some areas.
Orbital debris collides with the International Space Station, piercing the robotic arm.
According to the Canadian Space Agency, a robotic arm of the International Space Station (ISS) is still operational despite being struck by orbital debris last month. On May12, Nasa and the CSA discovered the damage to Canadarm2 during a routine inspection. Both space agencies’ experts captured accurate photographs of the region and measured the effect on one of Canadarm2’s boom segments. The damage was limited to a small portion of the “arm boom and thermal blanket,” they discovered.
“Despite the damage, the arm’s output appears to be unaffected, according to the results of the ongoing study. Only a small part of the arm boom and the thermal blanket are damaged. The CSA said in a statement that a hole of around 5mm in diameter is visible.
According to a study co-authored by the European Space Agency and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, the amount of orbital debris is steadily rising as countries launch more space missions than ever before. The recent dramatic increase in the number of space launches, especially by private companies, has exacerbated the problem of space junk.
Thousands of tonnes of debris, made up of obsolete satellites, rocket bodies, and old satellite pieces, pose a threat to operational satellites, the International Space Station, and potential missions. In a January paper, Nasa estimated that at least 26,000 pieces of space debris the size of a softball or larger could kill a satellite if they collided.Over 500,000 bits of debris the size of a marble, large enough to damage spacecraft or satellites, and over “100 million the size of a grain of salt, large enough to puncture a spacesuit,” according to the study.
“We take the possibility of collisions very seriously. Nasa has a long-standing series of procedures in place to ensure the safety of Station crew members. “All Station partners continue to prioritise the safety of astronauts on board the orbiting laboratory,” according to the CSA.
The US will shortly announce plans to distribute 80 million vaccines.
According to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the US will reveal in the next two weeks how it will market and distribute the 80 million Covid-19 vaccine doses it has promised globally.
Blinken said the administration of US President Joe Biden would concentrate on equal distribution of immunisations rather than tying political strings to the mechanism during a press conference with Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado.
On Monday, Biden announced that his administration would send at least 20 million doses of Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines to other nations, in addition to the 60 million AstraZeneca doses he had already intended to send.
On his first trip to Latin America as US Secretary of State, Blinken said, “We will be announcing the mechanism by which we will distribute and sell those vaccines some time within the next two weeks.” The small number of heart inflammation cases observed mainly in young men who received Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine in Israel were likely related to their vaccination, according to Israel’s health ministry.
At least one shot was given to 75% of the adult population in the United Kingdom.
Three-quarters of the adult population in the United Kingdom has received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to British health authorities. According to the data, 75.2 percent of people aged 18 and up received a shot, with 49.5 percent receiving both doses.
