NewsEarthquake hits Kamchatka, Venezuelans protest election, NC house collapses
Earthquake hits Kamchatka, Venezuelans protest election, NC house collapses
It happened while you were sleeping. Here is what global agencies reported on the night from Saturday to Sunday.
6:01 AM EDT, August 18, 2024
- In Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, and in many other countries worldwide with large Venezuelan immigrant communities, massive protests against the falsification of the presidential election results by Nicolas Maduro's dictatorship took place on Saturday. The government announced that Maduro supposedly won 51% of the votes. Protesters opposed the manipulation of the recent presidential election results. The demonstrators demanded acceptance of the "real outcome of the vote," referring to the success of opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, whose victory is confirmed by documents from more than 80% of polling stations. Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader who faced actions from Maduro's government preventing her from participating in the election, appeared unexpectedly at a large assembly in the capital after two weeks in hiding. Machado announced that the opposition has copies of voting protocols confirming their candidate's overwhelming lead.
- Last Saturday, seismic solid tremors were recorded in the eastern part of the Kamchatka Peninsula. According to information from the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, the earthquake was 7.2. A tsunami alert was issued. The tremors, magnitude 7.2, occurred east of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The center also reported that the earthquake's epicenter was about 56 miles east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and the depth at which the phenomenon occurred was 44 miles.
- For years, the Swiss army used Lake Lucerne, Lake Thun, and Lake Neuchâtel as dumping grounds for old ammunition, believing it could be stored there safely. An estimated 3,300 tons of ammunition are in Lake Lucerne alone, and 4,500 tons are in the waters around Neuchâtel, where the Swiss Air Force practiced bombings until 2021. The Swiss Defense Ministry is now offering a cash reward of 50,000 francs for the best idea of removing the ammunition.
- A beach house in the Outer Banks of North Carolina tilted under the pressure of waves before the pilings underneath it gave way, collapsing the entire structure into the sea. A beachgoer posted a video of the collapse on Instagram on August 16. National Park Service officials reported that the house's collapse was the seventh incident in Rodanthe in four years and warned visitors to stay away from beaches near the Cape Hatteras coastline.
