MUIR WOODS NATIONAL MONUMENT PARK, Calif. (AP) — A huge redwood tree fell and killed a man visiting Muir Woods National Monument Park in California on Christmas Eve, authorities said Thursday.
Subhradeep Dutta, 28, of Edina, Minnesota, died while walking on a marked dirt trail with two other people in the park north of San Francisco famous for its towering trees, according to the Marin County coroner's office and a spokesman for the park.
Dutta was pinned by the trunk of the 200-foot (60.96-meters)-tall tree and was pronounced dead at the scene. The trunk measured more than 4 feet (1.22 meters) in diameter.
A woman injured by falling debris was taken to the hospital for treatment. A man hiking with the group escaped injury.
The tree fell following a series of winter storms over the past two weeks.
“This is a very rare, and isolated event that may have occurred due to wet ground from recent winter storms, around the roots of the tree,” park spokesman Charles Strickfaden said in an email.
“The National Park Service extends its thoughts and prayers to all those involved,” he wrote.
Almost a million visitors visit the park each year. It remained open Thursday and only the areas affected by debris from the fallen tree were closed to the public.
Toyota says it's working with Japan’s space agency on a vehicle to explore the lunar surface, with ambitions to help people live on the moon by 2040 and eventually live on Mars.
he Australian government has pledged to spend another 1 billion Australian dollars ($704 million) over nine years on improving the health of the Great Barrier Reef after stalling a UNESCO decision on downgrading the natural wonder’s World Heritage status.
The study by California researchers that was published in Thursday’s journal Environmental Science & Technology found that more than 2.6 million tons of methane leaks into the air from gas stoves in the United States even when they aren't running.
Denmark’s government says it will scrap most pandemic restrictions next week, even as neighboring Sweden has extended its own measures for another fortnight.
A conservation group is turning over a historic redwood grove on the Northern California coast to descendants of the original Native American inhabitants.
Arguably the biggest challenge to the rise of electric vehicles is their outsized demand for rare earth minerals. Cheddar's Alex Vuocolo does a deep dive into the struggle over securing supply chains for a green tech future.
New research suggests giving extra cash to low-income mothers can change their infants’ brain development.
Pfizer and BioNTech have begun studying a COVID-19 vaccine tweaked to match to the omicron variant in healthy adults.
Federal authorities say the last of the escaped monkeys from a Pennsylvania highway crash of a truck towing a trailer load of the animals has been accounted for.
They say life is about the journey, not the destination — and how you get there makes all the difference. Americans shunned train stations, roadways, and airports amid the coronavirus pandemic, never realizing things could be fundamentally different when they return. In this episode, we're exploring the evolving world of transportation, from how we get around to how goods get to us.
