International
HUNDREDS DEAD AFTER LARGE EARTHQUAKE NEAR IRAN-IRAQ BORDER
On Sunday, Nov. 12, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck near the Iran-Iraq border killing over 400 people and injuring thousands. The deadliest temblor of 2017 so far.
According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake’s epicenter was located in a rural area on the Iranian side of the border Sunday night.
“Instructed civil defense teams and health and aid agencies to do all that they can to provide assistance,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a tweet.
Mansoureh Bagheri, a spokeswoman for the Iranian Red Crescent in Tehran said in an interview with CNN that the IRCS was working in the areas affected most by the quake with sniffer dogs, teams offering emergency shelter and treatment, and debris-removal teams. Bagheri noted that over 500 villages in the region suffered damage.
In an interview with NBC News, Stephen Hicks, a seismologist at the University of Southampton in England, said that because Iran sits on many major fault lines., Sunday’s quake was the largest to happen in “a long time.”
National
PUERTO RICO REQUESTS FUNDS FOR RECONSTRUCTION
On Monday, Nov. 13, Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello requested approximately $94.4 billion from Congress in order to rebuild after many regions were devastated by Hurricane Maria.
The money would be used to rebuild most of the island’s infrastructures such as schools, housing, and hospitals.
Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner to the U.S. Congress Jenniffer González-Colón announced that she introduced a disaster relief law known as the Stafford Act to legislation.
The Stafford act would allow the requested disaster relief funds to be used towards modernizing infrastructure since it was Puerto Rico’s buildings were weak, to begin with.
Local
7 teens injured, 5 critically, after Carson City rollover crash
On Thursday, Nov. 10, officials responded to a single-vehicle accident in Carson City on Kings Canyon Rd. When officials arrived at the scene, seven teenagers were found inside the Dodge Nitrus, five of the teens were not wearing seatbelts.
Officials reported that the vehicle had rolled over causing two teens to be airlifted to the hospital while the remaining five were taken via ambulance. According to the Trooper Dan Gordon, two teens are being treated for life-threatening injuries after being ejected from the vehicle. The remaining five are in critical condition.
A candlelight vigil was held Sunday in downtown Carson at McFadden Plaza.
“It’s just so hard to believe somebody your own age, somebody you go to school with, somebody you’re a student with… they are in a crash and they are hurt and they are in critical care and you don’t know what to do about it,” said Briana Foley in an interview with KOLO 8.
Karolina Rivas can be reached at mpurdue@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @karolinarrivas.