natural disasters

Faced with the threat of continued heavy rains and a dramatic weekend of landslides that left thousands of motorists stranded, Costa Rican highway officials decided to play it safe and close the main route linking San José with the Caribbean coast on Wednesday. But transit has returned to normal today, after officials reopened the route at 6 a.m. this morning.

As heavy rains continue to fall in Costa Rica, highway officials have ordered Route 32 to be closed as of 2 p.m. on Wednesday. The main highway through the Braulio Carrillo National Park and connecting San José with the Caribbean coast will remain closed for at least a day, officials said. Officials also are evaluating the possible closure of Route 27 to the central Pacific coast.

An unprecedented drought that has parched Northern California has led to one of the most active fire seasons on record in the U.S. state and there is little hope of a wet and cool end in sight.

The mountainous Route 32 to the Caribbean coast reopened over the weekend to normal traffic following an unprecedented natural disaster involving at least 40 landslides that trapped thousands of motorists for eight hours last Thursday night and Friday morning. Miraculously, no one was seriously injured.

A harrowing Thursday evening continued into early Friday morning for hundreds of motorists trapped on the Braulio Carrillo Highway that connects San José to the Caribbean port city of Limón. Heavy rains triggered multiple landslides that stranded 380 people for hours in the dark and rain.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua – A mysterious explosion that rocked Nicaragua's crowded capital Managua, creating a large crater, appears to have been caused by a meteorite, officials said Sunday.

In 1936 and 1937, young Werner Franz worked as a cabin boy on the Hindenburg, the largest, fastest and sleekest mode of transportation the world had seen up to that time.

Ebola is now spreading from the remote provinces and into the teeming cities such as Freetown, where 1.2 million people jostle for space. Previous outbreaks had been limited to remote villages, where containment was aided by geography. The thought of Ebola taking hold in a major city such as Freetown or Monrovia, Liberia's capital, is a virological nightmare.

BONANZA, Nicaragua – Twenty workers dramatically rescued from a collapsed Nicaraguan gold mine joined frantic efforts to find five comrades still missing after the cave-in, officials said Saturday.

Tim Callaghan and Phil Gelman were both involved in relief efforts in one of the most high-profile, horrific disasters in the Western Hemisphere in the last five years: the Haiti earthquake and cholera outbreak in 2010.