WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A powerful earthquake struck New Zealand’s already-bruised city of Christchurch on Tuesday, collapsing buildings, burying vehicles under debris and sending rescuers scrambling to help trapped people amid reports of multiple deaths.
The 6.3-magnitude quake struck the country’s second-largest city on a busy weekday afternoon, in contrast to a major quake that damaged Christchurch last September but caused no deaths when it struck before dawn on a weekend. Police said there were reports of multiple fatalities from the latest temblor, while Prime Minister John Key told Parliament details of the deaths still were too shaky to confirm.
Witnesses said the quake destroyed the iconic stone Christchurch Cathedral, its spire toppled into a central city square, and police said there was a report of two buses crushed under falling buildings.
Live video footage showed sections of buildings collapsed into the streets, strewn with bricks and shattered concrete. Sidewalks and roads were cracked and split, and thousands of dazed, screaming and crying residents wandered through the streets as sirens blared.
Updated quake news already. Just happened to be up to catch this and it seems even though there isn’t much damage it may be a record for recent quakes.
TIJUANA, Mexico – One of the strongest earthquakes to hit Southern California in decades shook tens of millions of people in two countries and three states on Sunday, swaying buildings from Los Angeles to Phoenix to Tijuana. At least one person in Mexico was killed and others were feared trapped in their homes.
The 7.2-magnitude quake struck at 3:40 p.m. PDT, about 38 miles (60 kms) southeast of the border city of Mexicali, Mexico, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It had a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles). Three aftershocks of magnitudes 5.1, 4.5 and 4.3 followed within the hour.
“It sounds like it’s felt by at least 20 million people at this point,” USGS seismologist Lucy Jones said. “Most of Southern California felt this earthquake.”
The earthquake was felt the hardest in Mexicali, a bustling commerce center along the border.
Baja California state Civil Protection Director Alfredo Escobedo said a man was killed when his home collapsed just outside of Mexicali, and that there were reports of more people trapped in homes in the area.
Rescue teams with dogs and digging equipment were rushing to the city from nearby Tijuana, but a landslide along that highway was slowing traffic.
LOS ANGELES – Seismologists have raised the preliminary magnitude of an earthquake in northern Baja California from 6.9 to 7.2.
U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones says the new magnitude of the 3:40 p.m. Sunday earthquake is still an estimate.
The quake centered south of California’s border with Mexico was widely felt, swaying buildings as far away as San Diego, Los Angeles and Arizona.
There has been no confirmed damage, but some power outages were reported in southern Arizona and Tijuana, Mexico. Jones says any damage would likely have occurred closer to the epicenter such as in the Mexican city of Mexicali or in U.S. border cities.
From the original article:
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A strong earthquake south of the U.S.-Mexico border Sunday swayed high-rises in downtown Los Angeles and San Diego and was felt across Southern California and Arizona, but there were no immediate reports of major damage.
The 6.9 magnitude quake struck at 3:40 p.m. in Baja California, Mexico, about 19 miles southeast of Mexicali, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The area was hit by magnitude-3.0 quakes all week.
The quake was felt as far north as Santa Barbara, USGS seismologist Susan Potter said.
Strong shaking was reported in the Coachella Valley and Riverside, Calif. The earthquake rattled buildings on the west side of Los Angeles and in the San Fernando Valley, interrupting Easter dinners. Chandeliers swayed and wine jiggled in glasses.
In Los Angeles, the city fire department went on “earthquake status,” and some stalled elevators were reported. No damage was reported in Los Angeles or San Diego.
One woman called firefighters and said she was stuck in an elevator descending from the 34th floor in a building in Century City, but there was no way to immediately know if the breakdown was tied the quake, Los Angeles firefighter Eric Scott said.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power says there are no power outages anywhere in the city, spokeswoman Maryanne Pierson said.
The quake was felt for about 40 seconds in Tijuana, Mexico, causing buildings to sway and knocking out power in parts of the city. Families celebrating Easter ran out of the homes, with children screaming and crying.
Baja California state Civil Protection Director Alfredo Escobedo said there were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage. But he said the assessment was ongoing.
In the Phoenix area, Jacqueline Land said her king-sized bed in her second-floor apartment felt like a boat gently swaying on the ocean.
“I thought to myself, ‘That can’t be an earthquake. I’m in Arizona,’” the Northern California native said. “And I thought, ‘Oh my God, I feel like I’m 9 years old.’”
A police dispatcher in Yuma, Ariz., said the quake was very strong there, but no damage was reported. The Yuma County Sheriff’s Office had gotten a few calls, mostly from alarm companies because of alarms going off.
Mike Wong, who works at a journalism school in downtown Phoenix, said he was in his second-floor office getting some work done Sunday afternoon when he heard sounds and felt the building start to sway.
“I heard some cracking sounds, like Rice Krispies,” coming from the building, he said. “I didn’t think much of it, but I kept hearing it, and then I started feeling a shake. I thought, ‘You know what? I think that might be an earthquake.”
Wong said the swaying lasted for “just a few seconds,” and he didn’t notice any damage.
An earthquake also hit in Northern California Sunday afternoon. The U.S. Geological Survey says a quake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.0 was recorded at 3:49 p.m. about 25 miles north of Santa Rosa.
A dispatcher with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department said the agency had not received any calls for service after the quake.
Tsunami travel times: National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration
Nations around the Pacific Ocean are on full alert as a tsunami triggered by a 8.8 magnitude earthquake in central Chile brings higher than normal waves.
Tsunami warnings have been sounded in an area affecting about a quarter of the globe.
Waves have spread from the epicentre of quake and may strike land bordering the Pacific in the next 24 hours.
Warning systems have improved since the 2004 Indonesia quake sparked a tsunami that killed some 250,000 people.
Nations affected by the Pacific “Rim of Fire” have all sounded alerts, trying to estimate the anticipated time of arrival of any tsunami.
‘Urgent action’
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has said there may be “widespread damage” from high waves.
A warning was issued in Hawaii for a possible tsunami
“Authorities should take appropriate action in response to this threat,” it said.
Large waves are reported to have struck Chile’s Juan Fernandez island group, reaching halfway into one inhabited area. Three people there are missing, local media say. Two aid ships are reported to be on their way.
Parts of French Polynesia’s coast were hit by waves of up to 6ft (2m) at 1630 GMT, but there was no damage immediately reported.
It has been difficult to estimate the possible wave heights of any tsunami – the waves may not arrive at all or could be as high as 10 metres above normal sea level.
In Tahiti, traffic was banned on roads less than 500m from sea, and residents on low-lying land were told to get to higher ground, but the first tsunami waves were smaller there, measuring only 36cm.
New Zealand has warned waves up to 3m could hit the main North and South Islands plus outlying islands.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii was monitoring the waves
Waves measuring 20cm hit the Chatham Islands, about 400 miles from the mainland, about 1905 GMT, but the Ministry of Civil Defence warned that “the greatest wave heights will occur between six and 12 hours after the initial arrivals.”
American Samoa has urged residents to seek shelter, calling on coastal villagers to seek higher ground.
Sirens were sounded in Hawaii to alert residents to the tsunami threat several hours before waves were expected.
The first waves in Hawaii are expected about 1100 local time on Saturday (2100 GMT) and measure about 8ft (2.5m).
Strong currents
John Cummings, Oahu civil defence spokesman, said: “Get off the shoreline. We are closing all the beaches and telling people to drive out of the area.”
Australian officials warned of “possible dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding” from Sydney to Brisbane.
Japan may be hit at 0300 GMT on Sunday, the country’s meteorological agency said, calling for people to be fully alert.
California has also warned its coastal cities to prepare for possible tsunami waves, the first strike possibly around San Diego.
The Cook Islands, Kiribati, Niue, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu could also all be at risk.
AP – Residents look at a collapsed building in Concepcion, Chile, Saturday Feb. 27, 2010
TALCA, Chile – One of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck Chile on Saturday, toppling homes, collapsing bridges and plunging trucks into the fractured earth. A tsunami set off by the magnitude-8.8 quake threatened every nation around the Pacific Ocean — roughly a quarter of the globe.
Chileans near the epicenter were tossed about as if shaken by a giant.
It was the strongest earthquake to hit Chile in 50 years. President-elect Sebastian Pinera said more than 120 people died, a number that was rising quickly.
The quake shook buildings in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires, and was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the east.
~~~~~
The jolt set off a tsunami that raced across the Pacific, setting off alarm sirens in Hawaii, Polynesia and Tonga. Tahitian officials banned all traffic on roads less than 1,600 feet (500 meters) from the sea and people in several low-lying island nations were urged to find higher ground.
Hawaii could face its largest waves since 1964 starting at 11:19 a.m. (4:19 p.m. EST, 2119 GMT), according to Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Officials evacuated people and boats near the water and closed shore-side Hilo International Airport.
Experts said tsunami waves were likely to hit Asian, Australian and New Zealand shores within 24 hours of the earthquake. The U.S. West Coast and Alaska, too, were threatened. In all, 53 nations and territories were subject to tsunami warnings.
Waves 6 feet (1.8 meter) above normal hit Talcahuano near Concepcion 23 minutes after the quake, and President Michelle Bachelet said a huge wave swept into a populated area in the Robinson Crusoe Islands, 410 miles (660 kilometers) off the Chilean coast.
Bachelet said she had no information on the number of people injured in the quake. She declared a “state of catastrophe” in central Chile but said the government has not asked for assistance from other countries.
Not much news yet, but preliminary reports say no damage. We felt it well over 200 miles inland.
!! You can find an update HERE but not much has changed. !!
A magnitude 6.0 quake shook Northern California early this afternoon, apparently along the same fault under the Pacific Ocean where a 6.5 temblor hit last month.
Today’s quake was centered 47 miles southwest of Eureka and 35 miles northwest of Petrolia, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Residents as far inland as Shasta Lake, Redding, Happy Valley and Red Bluff reported feeling “weak” shaking during the 12:20 p.m. quake. Even on the coast the shaking was reported as “light.”
It was not immediately clear whether today’s quake is an aftershock of last month’s temblor, said Leslie Gordon, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey.
!! IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE QUAKE ON 2-4-10, CLICK HERE !!
At 4:27 this afternoon a 6.5 quake hit 27 miles off the coast of Eureka. That’s a fairly big shaker and we felt it here well over 200 miles inland. There were a few shakers in the 3-4 range in San Francisco earlier this week and the epicenter of this one is at the end of the San Andreas fault where it meets the Pacific and American plates in the Cascadia subduction zone. There have been several aftershocks but no threat of a tsunami.
!UPDATE! Some minor damage, injuries and power outages.
Dozens of people suffered minor injuries and thousands lost power.
In Eureka, north of Ferndale, residents of an apartment building were evacuated, and an office building and two other commercial structures in the town of about 26,000 people were declared unsafe for occupancy, according to Humboldt County spokesman Phil Smith-Hanes.
“Our initial reports were that, though this was a pretty decent quake, we survived it well,” Smith-Hanes said, adding that damage assessments would continue Sunday across the county.
Sandra Hall, owner of Antiques and Goodies, said furniture fell over, nearly all her lamps broke and the handful of customers in her store got a big scare. She said it was the most dramatic quake in the 30 years the Eureka store has been open.
“We’ll be having a sale on broken china for those who like to do mosaics,” she said.
More than a dozen aftershocks, some with magnitudes as powerful as 4.5, rumbled for several hours after the initial quake, which had a depth of nearly 10 miles.
If you want to get an idea of just how absurd the global warming propaganda has gotten, consider a current TV commercial that suggests that “our green planet” will cease to be green if we don’t do something about the things that threaten its greenness, such as growing levels of atmospheric CO2.
Think about that for a moment. Ask yourself this question: What makes our planet green?
If you guessed CO2, you’re right. CO2 is to trees and foliage and all vegetation what oxygen is to humans — they can’t survive without it. It’s what makes them green and healthy.
The more CO2, the greener and healthy our planet. Yet the global warming fanatics are classifying CO2 as a pollutant and blaming it for dangerously warming our (fast cooling) planet.
How stupid do they think we are?
They call CO2 a “greenhouse gas” getting that description from what happens when the sun penetrates the glass in a greenhouse and not only heats its interior but also traps the heat, which cannot escape trough the panes enclosing it.
Atmospheric CO2, we are assured, acts like the panes of glass in the greenhouse, trapping the heat in the atmosphere and thus warming the planet. But CO2 levels have skyrocketed since 2000, and guess what’s happened?
It’s gotten colder, that’s what happened.
Maybe some kid broke the glass in the greenhouse.
Then there’s the latest panic about the alleged plight of the polar bears. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) polar bears face extinction — but not quite yet.
According to the WWF, “With 20-25,000 polar bears living in the wild, the species is not currently endangered, but its future is far from certain.”
They go on to assure us that, “If current warming trends continue unabated, scientists believe that polar bears will be vulnerable to extinction within the next century.”
To help stop that from happening, the WWF would like you to send it money.
Didja hear that? They still believe it!
Like all solemn pronouncements from the warmiacs, the predictions concerning polar bear extinction is based solely on computer models, not on what’s happening now. Remember, the group said, “The species is not currently endangered.” And what’s happening now is the swelling of the polar bear population, which grew from a low of 5,000 to 10,000 in the ’50s and ’60s, according to The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Moreover, a 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.”
A Jan. 30, 2008, report from the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee notes, “The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. And the methodology of these computer models is being challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts.”
In other words, garbage in, garbage out (GIGO).
The report cites Canadian biologist Mitchell Taylor, wildlife research director with the Arctic government of Nunavut, as saying: “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.”
Taylor added, “It is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria.”
A study by Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania and his colleague, forecasting expert Kesten Green of Monash University in Australia, found that one of the two key reports in support of listing the bears had “extrapolated nearly 100 years into the future on the basis of only five years data — and data for these years were of doubtful validity.” GIGO!
Asks botanist David Bellamy, a famed U.K. environmental campaigner, former lecturer at Durham University, and host of a popular U.K. TV series on wildlife: “Why scare the families of the world with tales that polar bears are heading for extinction when there is good evidence that there are now twice as many of these iconic animals, most doing well in the Arctic than there were 20 years ago?”
If you want something real to worry about, try an eruption of the Yellowstone caldera where scientists have discovered that the ground is over 70 centimeters higher than in was in 1923 — indicating a massive swelling underneath the park.
Mount Saint Helens Erupts 1980
There was a swarm of 16 earthquakes in 24 hours this past weekend. The reservoir is filling with magma at a staggering rate. The volcano erupts with a calendar-like cycle of every 600,000-650,000 years.
The last eruption was more than 640,000 years ago.
Last time it erupted, 642,000 years ago, it ejected 1,000 cubic kilometers of magma into the air. If this happened in today’s world, it would kill millions and cover most of the United States in a layer of ash at least a centimeter thick. The lighter ash would rise up into the atmosphere, initiating a volcanic winter and ruining crops worldwide.
This is something genuine Al Gore could get really his teeth on. Instead of recommending carbon caps, he could suggest sacrificing a few virgins to the god Vulcan. It would be cheaper than cap and trade.
I’m going to listen a bit closer since this is in my backyard.
An extensive fault that tracks the Pacific coast of North America from Canada to Northern California could trigger major quakes along California’s San Andreas Fault, a new study suggests.
San Andreas Fault. Robert E. Wallace. USGS
“The faults seem to be communicating with each other,” said study leader Chris Goldfinger of Oregon State University.
The evidence came from core samples of marine sediments taken along the northern California seabed. There, seismologists found 15 turbidites, sediment deposits that are created when an earthquake triggers an underwater landslide. The turbidites correspond to earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault, including the great 1906 earthquake that destroyed large parts of San Francisco.
The study, detailed in the April issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, revealed that 13 out of 15 of the San Andreas earthquakes in the past 3,000 years occurred at almost the same time (in geological terms) as quakes along the southern portion of the Cascadia fault. The Cascadia temblors preceded the ruptures along the San Andreas by an average of about 25 to 45 years (to seismologists who study events across millions and billions of years, that’s a close match).
“It’s either an amazing coincidence or one fault triggered the other,” Goldfinger said.
The Cascadia and San Andreas Faults meet a third fault, the Mendocino, at a spot just off Cape Mendocino in California that Goldfinger describes as “a kind of plate tectonics oddity where three plates come together.”
A strong earthquake shook rural northeastern Nevada Thursday, damaging a town’s historic district but sparing residents from any serious injuries.
The magnitude of the quake, initially estimated at 6.3, was later revised to 6.0 by the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.
The quake, which struck at 6:16 a.m., was centered in a sparsely populated area 11 miles southeast of Wells near the Nevada-Utah line.
It was felt across much of the West, from northern Idaho and Utah to Southern California, officials said. At least five less severe aftershocks were reported.
“Definitely a lot of people felt this, and if they were sleeping, they were awoken,” said USGS geophysicist Carrieann Bedwell.
The most serious damage was reported in Wells’ largely unoccupied historic district, Elko County Undersheriff Rocky Gonzalez said.
Brick facades tumbled off several buildings, signs fell and windows broke, and some vehicles parked on the street were damaged by falling debris, KELK Radio in Elko reported.
Dan Burns, spokesman with the Nevada Division of Emergency Management, said transportation and safety personnel were inspecting roads, bridges and dams in the area for structural damage.
Burns said at least two buildings in historic area had partially collapsed, and two main water lines had ruptured.
A Flying J Truck Stop was evacuated because of a propane leak, Gonzalez said, but no fires broke out. The leak was contained by midmorning.
Union Pacific Rail Road suspended traffic so its tracks could be inspected. Service later resumed, a spokeswoman said.
In Wendover, Utah, on the Nevada-Utah line, Tammy Wadsworth was ironing clothes when the quake hit.
“I kept thinking, ‘When is it going to quit?’ A couple pictures fell off the walls,” she said. “One of my grandkids ran outside. They didn’t know what else to do. It scared them.”
Tony Lowry, an assistant professor of geophysics at Utah State University, said the size of the quake and its location was unusual.
“In that part of Nevada, I don’t think we’ve seen any like that in the last 150 years or so,” Lowry said. “It’s not one of the places we would’ve looked or expected.”
