Seven-year-old hero saves his family

911 Emergency Service operators are used to getting calls from terrified people. But when operator Monique Patino in Norwalk, California, received a call from a panic-stricken 7-year-old boy whose family was being attacked by three armed robbers it was the start of an “unbearable" ordeal for her.

This is a transcript of the 911 call by the boy, identified only as Carlos, released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department:

Carlos: Can you come really fast? Please, please!

Operator: Can you tell me what happened?

Carlos: (Breathing heavily) They come, they open, ring the door, and they have guns, they shoot my mom and dad!

Operator: Right now?

Carlos: (Younger sister can be heard whimpering in the background) Yes, can you come really fast? Bring some cops, um…

Operator: Ok, I have them coming…

Carlos: A lot of them! The guys they have… (screams as the robbers enter the bathroom)

According to Captain Patrick Maxwell of the Sheriff’s Department, at that point “The door was forced open and the phone was taken from Carlos, and you can hear the screaming.” When the intruders realised Carlos had called the police, they fled, leaving Carlos and his parents unharmed. The three suspects are still at large.

At an interaction with the press later, Ms. Patino said, wiping away tears, “I still hear his little voice on the phone. Just hearing them screaming and crying for help, I just felt the fear through the phone.”

But Carlos had singlehandedly saved his family. With unusual presence of mind for a seven-year-old, he had grabbed his six-year old sister, locked them both in the bathroom and immediately dialled 911.

Carlos, who also made an appearance before the press, said, “[The intruders] were next to the door, with my mom and dad, and [my mom and dad] were putting their hands up and their heads down.” He said his mom taught him what to do in an emergency, and “to practice it everyday.”

When asked if he was scared, he said, “Just a little bit.” Ms. Patino added, “He was very brave, I am very proud of what he did, and he’s my little hero.” When asked about the screaming Carlos underscored his heroic credentials, saying, “It was my sister!”

Chile quake shortened days: Nasa scientist

The powerful earthquake that shook Chile on Saturday probably shifted the earth’s axis and made days slightly shorter, a Nasa scientist said.

Mr Richard Gross, a research scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, calculated that the planet’s axis would have shifted by eight centimetres during the 8.8 magnitude quake, Nasa said in a statement.

Earth days are 24 hours long because that’s the amount of time it takes the planet to make one full rotation on its axis, so shifting the axis would affect rotation. If, indeed, the planet’s axis did shift by eight centimetres during the Chilean quake, days would have shortened by 1.26 microseconds, Mr Gross calculated.

A microsecond is one-millionth of a second, so no need to adjust watches just yet. The Chilean quake shifted the Earth's axis by even more than the 9.1-magnitude temblor off Indonesia that set off the deadly tsunami in Asia in 2004, Mr Gross worked out.

That’s partly because the faultline responsible for the earthquake in Chile “dips into earth at a slightly steeper angle than does the fault responsible for the 2004
Sumatran earthquake” and is more effective at moving earth’s mass vertically and shifting the planet’s axis.

The 2004 earthquake in Asia caused the earth to move by around seven centimetres and chopped an estimated 6.8 microseconds off the length of a day, Nasa said.