Disaster online map
There’s an interesting map project that plots real-time disasters around the world through radio distress signals from the National Association of Radio-Distress Signaling and Info-communications. Disaster.net (Lt. for bad star) has everything: nuclear hazards, airplane crashes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tropical storms, epidemics, each with a little icon designating type and magnitude. The world map with little blinking icons recalls a Civilization game screen, you can click to see a description of the disaster, its recent history and what is being done to relieve it. Through a kind of God’s-eye view, you can also monitor the location, growth and movement of certain disasters, e.g. the spread of epidemics, movement of hurricanes. You can even identify the fault-lines from it, as they are lined with volcanic activity. Speeking of which, Antarctica’s Mr. Erebus, named after Greek god of Darkness, son of Chaos, has been showing some activity. The project also offers RSS feeds so you can keep track of your disasters around the clock.