Haiti devastated by massive earthquake...

A massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake has struck the Caribbean nation of Haiti.

The extent of the devastation is still unclear but there are fears thousands of people may have died.

Frozen Britain seen from above

WEATHER AND TRAVEL INFO

• Get the latest on school closures and travel problems via your BBC Local website
• Check if snow is forecast in your area at BBC Weather
• Details of motorway and local road closures and public transport disruption are available at BBC Travel News
• For advice on handling difficult driving conditions, see the Highways Agency website
• For information about severe weather warnings, see the Met Office website
• For information about staying healthy in the current cold snap, see the NHS Winter Health website

BOB SAYS...

"A very merry Christmas and a happy new year to everybody and may next year bring joy and happiness to you"

Bob de Bilde (aka Bill de Dashe)

BBC Pebble Mill demolished during 2005 in Birmingham

Above: Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham 1971 to 2005

GOING...

GOING...

GONE!!!

Falling down...

My own car crash...

Well mitigation? It was the day after my father-in-law's funeral and I was driving through Birmingham's Red light area. (I was travelling from DSS office at Camp Hill to home in Kings Heath, and as such was entitled to be there!)
In front of me was a Stoke on Trent private hire minicab, with no POB (passenger on board) and the driver was looking at the females who were selling themselves, he kept slowing down and then speeding up. All of a sudden he braked and I hit him.
I'm told by all concerned that it was my fault for driving too fast in a built up area (25mph in a 30mph zone?)...

Leaning Tower of Sioux Falls

Despite all the excitement about blowing up the tallest building in Sioux Falls, the zip feed tower, it didn't go down.

The 202-foot tall Zip Feed Tower in Sioux Falls, S.D., the tallest building in the city, and believed to be the tallest building in the state, was scheduled for demolition Saturday. However, after the explosions, the tower wasn’t demolished; it was leaning to one side.

Many in the crowd of more than 200 that gathered at Kilian College gasped when the blast went off, then held their breath as the tower leaned and stopped. And they held their breath some more.

Slowly, anticipation turned to confusion and, in less than a minute, to laughter at the mishap nobody had prepared them for.

One of the few people not smiling was Jim Redyke, who supervised the explosion for Dykon Explosive Demolition of Tulsa, Okla.

He said the tower didn’t fall because the concrete on the west side did not remain stiff. Instead of cutting a wedge out of the east side, the explosion collapsed both sides as well as the basement foundation, leaving the building stuck like a cork in a bottle.

“What you count on with these things is stiffness in the frame of the mechanism to push it over center,” he said. — Argus Leader

Clearly they picked the wrong people to do the demolition. They should have gotten Controlled Demolition Inc. to do it. They have a lot of experience blowing up all sorts of tall structures.

The demolition company now goes to Plan B: the old-fashioned wrecking ball.