Latest Coastlines and beaches News

Prayers and tears mark 20 years since the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed some 230,000 people

Dec. 25, 2024 23:16 PM EST

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — People started gathering in prayer on Thursday and visiting the mass graves in Indonesia’s Aceh province to mark 20 years since the massive Indian Ocean tsunami, one of modern history’s worst natural disasters. Many openly wept as they placed...

California residents on edge as high surf and flooding threats persist on Christmas Eve

Dec. 24, 2024 21:56 PM EST

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — Persistent high surf and flooding threats along California’s coast had residents on high alert a day after a major storm was blamed for one man’s death and the partial collapse of a pier, which propelled three people into the Pacific Ocean. And two...

Sailors greeted with tears and cheers as USS Cole returns to home port ahead of Christmas

Dec. 24, 2024 21:24 PM EST

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Hundreds of sailors and their loved ones got an early Christmas present when the USS Cole docked at its home port in Norfolk, Virginia, after seven months at sea. The ship was greeted at Naval Station Norfolk on Monday with cheering from a crowd bundled in...

Major storm pounds California's central coast, blamed for man's death and partially collapsing pier

Dec. 24, 2024 00:42 AM EST

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — A major storm pounded California’s central coast on Monday, bringing flooding and high surf that was blamed for fatally trapping a man beneath debris on a beach and later partially collapsing a pier, tossing three people into the Pacific Ocean. The storm...

AP PHOTOS: The scars of a 9.1 earthquake and tsunami continue to haunt Indians for decades

Dec. 22, 2024 22:27 PM EST

NAGAPATTINAM, India (AP) — He was a young boy playing cricket with friends on a beach around 9:30 in the morning when a 9.1 magnitude earthquake violently shook the earth, and a tsunami struck from Indonesia to India two decades ago. Life changed for Yusuf Ansari, now a 32-year-old...

A race is on to clean up shorelines off Crimea after tons of oil spills from damaged Russian ships

Dec. 22, 2024 11:14 AM EST

Cleanup continued in the Kerch Strait near Russian-occupied Crimea on Sunday, a week after at least 3,700 tons of low-grade fuel oil spilled out of two storm-stricken Russian tankers. More than 7,500 people, many of them volunteers, raced to rescue wildlife and clean up shorelines...

Indonesians mark 2 decades since the tragic tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands

Dec. 20, 2024 22:49 PM EST

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Two decades after a catastrophic tsunami destroyed her village, Tria Asnani still cries when she recalls how she lost her mother while trying to escape the giant waves. Asnani, now a school teacher, was only 17 at the time. Her father, who was a...

Flood gates are dropped from a plan to protect the Jersey Shore's back bays from catastrophic storms

Dec. 20, 2024 13:56 PM EST

MANASQUAN, N.J. (AP) — The federal government has dropped huge gates at the mouths of three inlets, as well as internal waterway barriers from a plan to protect New Jersey's back bays from the type of catastrophic flooding they endured during Superstorm Sandy. Instead, the U.S....

Group says New Jersey toxic waste dumping caused $1B in harm, calls settlement inadequate

Dec. 18, 2024 04:25 AM EST

TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — Years of toxic waste dumping in a Jersey Shore community where childhood cancer rates rose caused at least $1 billion in damage to natural resources, according to an environmental group trying to overturn a settlement between New Jersey and the corporate successor to the...

Damaged Russian ships spilled an estimated 3,700 tons of oil in Kerch Strait, state media says

Dec. 16, 2024 12:56 PM EST

MOSCOW (AP) — An estimated 3,700 tons of low-grade fuel oil had spilled into the Kerch Strait after two Russian ships were seriously damaged by stormy weather, Russian state media reported Monday. The two ships, the Volgoneft 239 and the Volgoneft 212, were transporting roughly...