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Earthquake hits on the Iran–Iraq border

An earthquake with a moment magnitude of 7.3 occurred on the Iran–Iraq border. It was felt as far away as Israel and the United Arab Emirates. With at least 630 people killed, mostly in Iraq's Kurdish Halabja area and the Iranian Kurdish dominated province of Kermanshah, and more than 8,100 injured, as well as many more unaccounted for, it was the deadliest earthquake of 2017.

Beirut terror attacks

Two suicide bombers detonated explosives in Bourj el-Barajneh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, that is inhabited mostly by Shia Muslims. Reports of the number of deaths range from 37 to 43 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the attacks. The bombings were the worst terrorist attack in Beirut since the end of the Lebanese Civil War.

AA plane crashes in Rockaway, New York

The National Transportation Safety Board attributed the disaster to the first officer's overuse of rudder controls in response to wake turbulence, or jet wash, from a Japan Airlines Boeing 747-400 that took off minutes before it. This overuse caused the vertical stabilizer to snap off the plane.

The world's deadliest mid-air collision kills 349 people

The aircraft, involved in the collision, was a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747-100B en route from Delhi to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and a Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 en route from Chimkent, Kazakhstan, to Delhi. The accident was a fault of the Kazakh commander, who descended from the assigned altitude to 14,000 feet and lower.