International

This is Saint Martin, also known as Sint Maarten, a French and Dutch island in the Caribbean.

So it's a windy, cloudy, day in your tropical paradise...so what do you do with your day?  How about going to the local beach...which is at the end of the short length main runway at Princess Juliana International Airport... and being closer than you ever have before to a 747 landing above you! 

The airport is positioned between a large hill and a beach and makes for some spectacular approaches.

Aviation photographers flock to the airport to capture pictures of large jets just a few metres above sunbathers (or on this day simply onlookers) on Maho Beach.

Giant rocks came tumbling down a snowy Colorado mountainside early Monday, punching gaping holes in the interstate below, the Colorado Department of Transportation said.

The rock slide at Glenwood Canyon halted travel on Interstate 70 near Glenwood Springs - over 250kms west of Denver. It is unclear when construction crews will complete enough work to open at least part of the roadway.

About 20 boulders struck the interstate shortly after midnight, the transportation department said. They ranged from 1 metre to over 3 metres in diameter, with the largest weighing an estimated 66 tons, the department said.

STOCKHOLM (AP) - A passenger ferry with nearly 1,000 people on board returned safely to the Stockholm harbor early Friday after having broken free from heavy pack ice that had trapped it for hours in the Baltic Sea, officials said. 

Without warning, giant waves slammed into a cruise ship in the Mediterranean, killing two people, one by a shard of glass, survivors said.

Mark Phillips shares new video from inside the ship.

- CBS

ATHENS, Greece -- Greek and Cypriot officials say 26-foot waves have crashed into a cruise ship with nearly 2,000 people on board off France, smashing glass windshields and killing two passengers.
Another six people suffered light injuries, a Greek coast guard statement says.

It says the accident occurred near the French Mediterranean port of Marseilles on Wednesday as the Cypriot-owned Louis Majesty was sailing from Barcelona to Genoa in Italy with 1,350 passengers and 580 crew.

New Zealand is giving half a million dollars to Chile for the earthquake relief effort.

Along with today's cash contribution Foreign Minister Murray McCully says there are discussions with the Chilean authorities about how New Zealand could assist on the ground as well.

Since the massive 8.8 magnitude quake on Saturday, around 800 people are dead, many more are unaccounted for and many thousands have been made homeless.

The Chile tsunami was generated by a Mw 8.8 earthquake 115 km (60 miles) NNE of Concepcion, Chile. 

The tsunami was first recorded at DART® buoy 32412. Forecast results shown below were created with the NOAA forecast method using MOST model with the tsunami source inferred from DART® data. The tsunami waves first arrived at Valparaiso, Chile (approximately 330 km northeast from earthquake epicenter ) earlier than other tide gages, at 0708UTC, about 34 minutes after the earthquake.

Thank you to NOAA Center for Tsunami Research for providing this Animation/Video.

Saturday's massive 8.8 earthquake was certainly one for the record books but as far Chileans go it wasn't the biggest.

In 1960 Valdivia, Chile, recorded a mammoth 9.5 on the Richter Scale earthquake.

Just like Saturday's quake the epicentre was south of the nation's largest city Santiago.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre has now cancelled ALL tsunami warnings across the Pacific Ocean.

As of 11:15pm Sunday significant "dangerous" swells (or 'surges') are still affecting New Zealand's east coast.