2013 Top 12 YouTube News and Viral Videos: Twerking Miley Cyrus to Boston Marathon Bombing

YouTube said that 100 hours of video was uploaded to its website every single minute of 2013. This incredible variety of footage, captured on cameras, smartphones, CCTV and other media, has made the year even more news-content-rich.

IBTimes UK has selected the dozen videos out of the millions shared on the web in the past 12 months that have, more than any others, told an important story by adding a new side to it or simply by going viral.

1. Boston Marathon bombing

On April 15, two bombs went off near the finishing line of the Boston Marathon, in the US state of Massachusetts. Three people including an eight-year-old child were killed and more than 260 injured.

Police believe that two brothers of Chechen descent, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who were motivated by relivious extremism, planted the homemade explosive devices.

Many of the 23,000 runners and 500,000 spectators at the race were recording the event when death struck.

2. Russia's meteor

On February 15, a meteor exploded over Russia's Ural mountains, injuring 1,000 people on the ground below with burning space rock. Sonic blasts shattered windows and damaged buildings. The Russian Academy of Sciences estimated that the meteor weighed about 10 tonnes and entered Earth's atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 54,000km/h (33,000mph) before exploding 30-50km (18-32 miles) above ground. The moment the space rock entered the atmosphere and burned up was captured on dash-cams which are widely used by Russian drivers.

3. Typhoon Haiyan

In November a powerful typhoon rammed into the central Philippines leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. Typhoon Haiyan, locally known as Yolanda, claimed more than 6,000 lives and affected some 11 million people.Entire cities were grounded by the storm, one of the most powerful ever recorded. Here is a video of massive waves raised by the typhoon battering a village in eastern Samar.

4. Santiago de Compostela train crash

In July an eight-carriage train, travelling from Madrid to Ferrol, northwestern Spain, derailed on a curved stretch of track near Santiago de Compostela, at a reported speed of about 190km/h. 79 people were killed and 170 people were wounded in the crash, which was captured by a security camera.

5. Sharkeisha

In November an American teenager named Sharkeisha became an overnight sensation after sucker-punching an unsuspecting victim. The video went viral and was viewed by millions.

6.São Paulo motorcycle thief shooting

Months before the start of the World Cup in Brazil, security concerns were sparked by a stunning video showing a São Paulo motorcyclist being robbed at gunpoint before he was shot twice by an undercover policeman. The victim then shouted at the robber: "Go rob in hell, punk." The clip, captured on a helmet camera in the streets of Brazil's second largest city went viral on social media.

7.Taksim Gezi Park protests

In May, a protest against plans to turn Istanbul's Taksim Gezi Park into a shopping mall widened into a broader demonstration against Turkey's conservative government under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Demonstrations spread out from Istanbul to other cities and so did the violent clashes between protesters and police. In the capital of Ankara, Ethem Sarısülük, 27, was allegedly shot dead by riot police. His last moments were recorded by Turkish Kanal D broadcast.

8. Egypt's unrest

Hundreds were killed in Egypt in the aftermaths of a military coup that deposed president Mohammed Morsi in the wake of mass protests against his leadership. Morsi's arrest sparked large counter-demonstrations by Muslim Brotherhood supporters calling for the release of their leader. Demonstrations were violently quelled. Early in July Egyptian photographer Ahmed Samir Assem, 26, was filming the repression of a pro-Morsi demonstration outside the Republican Guard headquarters in Cairo, when a sniper shot him dead. Assem captured his own demise on his camera.

9. Nairobi Westgate Mall attack

In September, gunmen with the Somali al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabaab attacked the Westgate shopping centre in Kenya's capital of Nairobi. At least 67 people were killed during the siege which lasted several days. Violence, murder, panic, prayers and other shocking scenes were recorded by CCTV cameras in the four-storey mall.

10. Miley Cyrus twerking

Miley Cyrus, the 20-year-old former Hannah Montana star, shocked her audience at the MTV Video Music Awards in August with a raunchy performance with singer Robin Thicke. Within seconds of the footage going viral, the word "twerking" had entered the english language. If you are one of the few who don't know what we're taking about, here is a video of Cyrus' performance at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

11. Israel's IDF Gangnam Style dance

More than 12 months after its release, the beat of the Gangnam Style song by Psy is still making people go wild on dance floors around the world. Senior officials with the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) however were not too happy when a video of a group of Israeli soldiers dancing along with young Palestinians while on patrol in the occupied West Bank's city of Hebron emerged online. The soldiers were suspended pending an investigation by the IDF.

12. Woolwich murder

Motivated by radical religious views Londoners Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, murdered Fusilier Lee Rigby in broad daylight on the streets of Woolwich in May. After driving their car into Rigby and hacking him to death, the two killers engaged in conversation with bystanders while waiting for police to arrive. Shocking footage of the incident was recorded on camera and broadcast by ITV.