Thirty five confirmed deaths following Magnitude 7.8 Earthquake off the southern coast of Mindanao Island, Philippines.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology recorded a Magnitude 7.8 Earthquake at a depth of 33 km off the south coast of Mindanao Island, Philippines, slightly after 7.35 am on Monday 8 June 2026 local time (slightly after 11.35 pm on Sunday 7 June GMT). 

The location of the 8 June 2026 Mindanao Earthquake. USGS.

Thirty five people have been confirmed dead following this event, with another 134 injured, and a large number of buildings damaged or destroyed, with about 10 000 families displaced as a result of this Earthquake. People reported feeling tremors as far away as Manilla and northern Borneo. Countries around the Pacific Rim issued tsunami warnings after the event, although the largest wave recorded was about 1.4 m. Mindanao has subsequently been hit by a number of large aftershocks. 

A collapsed building in the city of General Santos on Mindanao Island, the Philippines. Department of Social Welfare and Development/Wikimedia Commons.

The geology of the central Philippines is Complex. The west of Mindanao Island is located on the Banda (or Sunda) Microplate, and the east on the Philippine Plate, which is being subducted beneath the Sunda (or Banda) Microplate along the central part of the island. Immediately to the east of the Island the Pacific Plate is being subducted along the Philippine Trench, and passes beneath eastern Mindanao as it sinks into the Earth. This is not a smooth process, an the plates constantly stick together then break apart again as the pressure builds up, resulting in Earthquakes.

Subduction beneath the Philippines. Yves Descatoire/Singapore Earth Observatory.

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Woman killed by Elephant in Kerala State, India.

A woman has died after being trampled by an Elephant on Monday 8 June 2026 in the village of Sinkukandam near the town of Suryanelli in the Idukki District of Kerala State, India. The woman, identified as Mari, a 36-year-old widow, mother of two, and day-labourer, encountered a mother Elephant with a calf while escorting her 11-year-old son to catch a school bus, at about 8.30 am local time. Both were attacked by the Animal, and subsequently rushed to a local hospital by a passing auto-rickshaw driver. Here Mari was pronounced dead, while her son, Dakshan, was transferred to the Kottayam Government Medical College Hospital for further treatment.

The funeral of a woman killed by an Elephant in the Idukki District of Kerala State on 8 June 2026. The Hindu.

The village is close to the Chinnakanal Reserve, which is home to a population of 18 Elephants. About 50 people are thought to have been killed by Elephants in and around Chinnakanal since 1990, ten of them by a single male known as 'Arikomban' who was eventually relocated away from the area by the Kerala Forest Department in 2023. This has placed considerable strain on the local Human population, and their ability to live alongside the area's Elephants.  

The major problem appears to be that the Chinnakanal Reserve covers an area of about 4 km², although only about half of this is utilised by the Elephants, who instead spill out into nearby farms and villages, often stealing food from Humans and coming into conflict with them. In an attempt to manage this conflict the Forest Department has set up a system alerts on social media and messaging platforms, which message people warning them that Elephants are in their area. However, local people have complained that they are not simply able to simply stop going about their daily business whenever Elephants wander into the area. On the day of the latest incident an alert had been put out, but visibility was very low due to rains and fog, apparently causing the victims to come close to the Elephants without realising the danger they were in until too late.

In 2022 Raju Francis of the Kerala Forest Development Corporation produced a report recommending the construction of a series of solar-powered electric fences to protect farmland and residential areas from Elephants emerging from the forest. Despite agreeing to this proposal, four years on the Forest Department has yet to install a single stretch of fencing, and is unable to confirm when this will begin, something which local people have described as grossly negligent, leaving their property and families vulnerable to Elephant attacks.

A group of Asian Elephants in Kerala State. Wikimedia Commons.

Asian Elephants, Elephas maximus, are classified as Endangered under the terms of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species, as the population has declined by more than 50% over the last three generations (about 75 years for Elephants). There are currently about 50 000 Asian Elephants (although Elephants are notoriously difficult to count, despite being such large Animals) scattered across Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. However, this population is now highly fragmented, with most Elephants living in small groups, reproductively isolated from other groups, and often coming into conflict with local Human populations as the land allocated to Elephants shrinks.

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Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, inundated with pumice following eruption of Titan Ridge submarine volcano.

A series of eruptions from the Titan Ridge submarine volcano, beneath the Bismarck Sea in the southwest Pacific Ocean, has produced a large volume of pumice (a light volcanic rock, produced by the rapid cooling of gas rich lava from submarine eruptions, which can float on the sea), much of which has washed up onto the shores of Manus Island, the largest of the Admiralty Islands and a province of Papua New Guinea. This has caused serious problems for the local population, as it has formed a barrier between them and the sea, too dense to push a boat through, but too quicksand-like to walk across. This in turn has prevented them from harvesting fish and other seafood, the main staples of the island, as well as forcing them to become entirely dependent on the islands limited supply of freshwater for washing and hygiene, rather than bathing in the sea. The large accumulations of pumice are also likely to have smothered local coral reef ecosystems, harming longer-term fishing prospects in the region.

Residents of Manus Island on a beach covered by pumice. ABC.

Pumice forms when hot lava from submarine volcanic eruptions encounters seawater and cools rapidly, simultaneously crystalising and degassing to form a lightweight volcanic rock with many gas filled vesicles (bubbles) within it, which often floats on the sea surface. Big submarine eruptions can produce large volumes of pumice, forming rafts of pumice that cover hundreds of square kilometres, and drift on the ocean surface for months before dissipating or washing ashore. 

Titan Ridge, also known as the Central Bismarck Sea Volcano, is located about 125 km to the southeast of Manus, on the northern edge of the South Bismarck Plate. It is located on the boundary between the Willaumez Transform Fault and an unnamed section of area of seafloor spreading, where the South Bismarck and Pacific plates are being pulled apart, while at the same time the Pacific Plate is moving to the west and the South Bismarck Plate to the east. Here fresh material from the upper mantle is rising up through the fault and being erupted from the volcano as volcanic material, primarily pumice caused by the rapid cooling of a liquid melt containing dissolved gasses. 

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The Daytime Arietid Meteor Shower.

The Arietid Meteor Shower lasts from mid April till late June each year, and is expected to peak before dawn on Wednesday 10 June this year, and originating (appearing to come from) the constellation of Aries. Meteors from this shower can be very bright, leading to the label 'Daytime' Meteors (i.e. meteors that can be seen during the day), although the majority are quite dim, and can be hard to spot. At its peak, the shower can produce about 50 meteors per hour. This year that peak will coincide with a Waning Crescent Moon, which would not normally present a great deal of interference. However, the Moon is also in the constellation of Aries at this time, which may hamper viewing.

The origin point for the Aried Meteors seen from the Northern Hemisphere in early June. Spaceweather.

Meteor streams are thought to come from dust shed by comets as they come close to the Sun and their icy surfaces begin to evaporate away. Although the dust is separated from the comet, it continues to orbit the Sun on roughly the same orbital path, creating a visible meteor shower when the Earth crosses that path, and flecks of dust burn in the upper atmosphere, due to friction with the atmosphere.

The Earth passing through a stream of comet dust, resulting in a meteor shower. Not to scale. Astro Bob.

The origin of the Arietid Meteors is unclear. No body has been confidently identified as the source of the Arietid Meteors, though both the asteroid 1566 Icarus and the comet 96P/Machholz have been suggested. 

How the passage of the Earth through a meteor shower creates a radiant point from which they can be observed. In The Sky.

Though the Arietid Meteors can be hard to see, it may be possible to 'hear' them using an FM radio. In order to do this it will be necessary to find a frequency between 88.0 and 108.0 MHz without any transmissions or significant static (this may not be possible in urban areas). Meteors passing though the atmosphere generate radio waves at these frequencies, which can be heard as 'bumps' or 'chirps'. More detailed observations can be used if the radio set-up has a directional antenna, allowing the observer to concentrate on a particular part of the sky (this is essentially how radio telescopes work).

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Magnitude 5.6 Earthquake in Bhutan.

The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 5.6 Earthquake at a depth of 10.0 km, about 15 km to the northwest of the city of Punākha, in Punākha District, Bhutan, slightly after 11.35 pm local time (slightly after 5.35 pm GMT) on Sunday 7 June 2026. There are no reports of any damage or casualties arising from this quake, but people have reported feeling it as far away as Tibet, India, and Bangladesh.

The approximate location of the 7 June 2026 Bhutan Earthquake. USGS.

Earthquake activity in the area is caused by the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, due to the impact of India into Eurasia to the south. he Indian Plate is moving northwards at a rate of 5 cm per year, causing it to impact into Eurasia, which is also moving northward, but only at a rate of 2 cm per year. The collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates has lead to the formation of the Himalayan Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau, and the mountains of southwest China, Central Asia and the Hindu Kush.

Block diagram showing how the impact of the Indian Plate into Eurasia is causing uplift on the Tibetan Plateau. Jayne Doucette/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Much of northern India and neighbouring areas of Central Asia and the Himalayas, are prone to Earthquakes caused by the impact of the Indian Plate into Eurasia from the south. When two tectonic plates collide in this way and one or both are oceanic then one will be subducted beneath the other (if one of the plates is continental then the other will be subducted), but if both plates are continental then subduction will not fully occur, but instead the plates will crumple, leading to folding and uplift (and quite a lot of Earthquakes). 

The movement of India into Eurasia over the last 71 million years. USGS.

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