August 21 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Observer orbiter 3 days before the spacecraft is scheduled to enter orbit around Mars. August 28 – Ong Teng Cheong becomes the first President of Singapore elected by the population. August 31 – Russia completes removing its troops from Lithuania. September September 13 1993 Norwegian parliamentary election: The Labour Party wins a plurality of the seats and Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland retains office. Oslo I Accord: Following initially secret talks from earlier in the year, PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin shake hands in Washington, D.C. after signing a peace accord. September 15–21 – Hurricane Gert crosses from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through Central America and Mexico. September 17 – Russian troops withdraw from Poland. September 19 – 1993 Polish parliamentary election: A coalition of the Democratic Left Alliance and the Polish People's Party led by Waldemar Pawlak comes into power. September 22 – Big Bayou Canot train disaster: A bridge collapses while the Amtrak Sunset Limited is in the process of crossing it, killing 47 people. September 23 – The International Olympic Committee selects Sydney, Australia, to host the 2000 Summer Olympics. September 24 – The Cambodian monarchy is restored, with Norodom Sihanouk as king. September 26 The first mission in Biosphere 2 ends after two years. PoSAT-1 (the first Portuguese satellite) is launched on board French rocket Ariane 4. September 27 – War in Abkhazia: Fall of Sukhumi – Eduard Shevardnadze accuses Russia of passive complicity. September 30 – Latur earthquake: A 6.2 earthquake occurs in the vicinity of Maharashtra, India having a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing 9,748 and injuring 30,000. October October 3–4– Battle of Mogadishu: The U.S. Army conducts Operation Gothic Serpent in the city of Mogadishu, Somalia, deploying Task Force Ranger. Two U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawks are shot down and the operation leaves over 1,000 Somalians dead and over 74 Americans wounded in action, 18 killed and 1 captured. October 4 – The Russian constitutional crisis culminates with Russian military and security forces, using tanks and clearing the White House of Russia Parliament building by force, quashing a mass uprising against President Boris Yeltsin. October 5 – China performs a nuclear test, ending a worldwide de facto moratorium. October 10 – The South Korean ferry Seohae capsizes off Pusan, South Korea; 292 are killed. October