Free Republic

Two people were killed on Tuesday in a rockslide at the Highway 140 entrance of Yosemite National Park. The victims have been identified by Park officials as 51-year-old Georgios Theocharous and 35-year-old Ming Yan, a married couple from San Jose. The incident occurred around 9 am when the couple were driving on El Portal Road, near Big Oak Flat Road. Approximately 185 tons of rock fell 1,000 feet onto the roadway below, pushing the couple’s Dodge Ram onto the embankment of the Merced River. Following a brief closure, Highway 140 once again opened to the public, only to close again...

ZION NATIONAL PARK — A major rock fall closed state Route 9 in Zion National Park early Wednesday morning and is expected to remain closed into the weekend. The large rocks fell on the highway about 4:30 a.m. about 200 feet from the Pine Creek Bridge on a switchback near the Mount Carmel Tunnel, according to park officials. The largest boulder is around 19 feet high, 20 feet long and 15 feet wide and officials said it weighs around 200 tons. The second boulder measured at approximately 10 feet high, 10 feet long and 15 feet wide, weighing about 100...

A couple of weeks ago I posted some Merapi eruption photos (actually, it think it was Mayon; I did find some earlier pictures of pyroclastic flows on Merapi). I noted how difficult it was to find good pictures of the recent activity (still true; most of the photos weren't that great). Well... I found some good great ones. A couple are below; go to the link for the full set.