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NEW
ORLEANS - HAITI;
BATON
ROUGE: N.O.A.A.
IMAGE (l.); Mount Redoubt blows
pretty high March '09...ash
covers the snow. Indonesia, flood, typhoon,
quake. And now
Iceland's
volcanic eruptions...
HAITI: An interesting history (from U. Maine student work)
September 1, 2008, A.M. picture
- for NOAA background comparison to Katrina, as reported by A.P.;
volcano erupts (AK) and Indonesia earthen dam gives way.
New Orleans: "There were frightening
comparisons between
Gustav and Katrina, which
flooded 80 percent of New Orleans when the storm surge overtook the
levees. While Gustav isn't as large as Katrina, which was a massive
Category 5 storm at roughly the same place in the Gulf, there was no
doubt the storm posed a major threat to a partially rebuilt New Orleans
and the flood-prone coasts of Louisiana and southeast Texas. The storm
has already killed at least 94 people on its path through the
Caribbean." Inching up year by year is the threat to
Venice...more big events...
VOLCANO
Did someone say "Krakatoa East of Java?"
Indonesian volcano erupts
again; strongest yet
YAHOO
By BINSAR BAKKARA, Associated Press Writer
7 September 2010
TANAH KARO, Indonesia – An Indonesian volcano shot a towering cloud of
black ash high into the air Tuesday, dusting villages 15 miles (25
kilometers) away in its most powerful eruption since awakening last
week from four centuries of dormancy. Some witnesses at the foot
of Mount Sinabung reported seeing an orange glow — presumably magma —
in cracks along the volcano's slopes for the first time. Vast swaths of
trees and plants were caked with a thick layer of ash.
"There was a huge, thunderous sound. It sounded like hundreds of bombs
going off at one," said Ita Sitepu, 29, who was among thousands of
people staying in crowded emergency shelters well away from the base.
"Then everything starting shaking. I've never experienced anything like
it."
Mount Sinabung's first eruption last week caught many scientists off
guard. With more than 129 active volcanoes to watch in this vast
archipelago, local vulcanologists had failed to monitor the long-quiet
mountain for rising magma, slight uplifts in land and other signs of
seismic activity.
Indonesia is a seismically charged region because of its location on
the so-called "Ring of Fire" — a series of fault lines stretching from
the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia. There
are fears that current activity could foreshadow a much more
destructive explosion in the coming weeks or months, though it is
possible, too, that Sinabung will go back to sleep after letting off
steam. More than 30,000 people living along the volcano's fertile
slopes have been relocated to cramped refugee camps, mosques and
churches in nearby villages.
But some have insisted on returning to the danger zone to check on
their homes and their dust-covered crops. The government sent
dozens of trucks to the mountain to help carry them back before
Tuesday's eruption, which sent ash and debris shooting three miles
(5,000 meters) into the air, said Surono, who heads the nation's
volcano alert center.
"It was really terrifying," said Anissa Siregar, 30, as she and her two
children arrived at one of the makeshift camps, adding that the
mountain shook violently for at least three minutes. "It just keeps
getting worse."
Local media said ash had reached as far as Berastagi, a district 15
miles (25 kilometers) from the base of the mountain. Surono, who,
like many Indonesians, uses only one name, said activity was definitely
on the rise: There were more than 80 volcanic earthquakes in the
24-hour lead-up to the blast, compared to 50 on Friday, when ash and
debris shot nearly two miles (3,000 meters).
The eruption early Tuesday occurred just after midnight during a
torrential downpour. Witnesses said volcanic ash and mud oozed down the
mountain's slopes, flooding into abandoned homes. Others said saw
bursts of fire and hot ash. The force of the explosion could be
felt five miles (eight kilometers) away.
Indonesia has recorded some of the largest eruptions in history.
The 1815 explosion of Mount Tambora buried the inhabitants of Sumbawa
Island under searing ash, gas and rock, killing an estimated 88,000
people.
The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa could be heard 2,000 miles (3,200
kilometers) away and blackened skies region-wide for months. At least
36,000 people were killed in the blast and the tsunami that followed.
Page
last updated at 11:00 GMT, Saturday, 29
May 2010 12:00 UK
Thousands flee volcanos in Ecuador and
Guatemala
Thousands of people have been forced to
flee their homes as two volcanos erupted in Guatemala and Ecuador.
In Guatemala, the Pacaya volcano began spewing lava, rocks
and debris on Thursday, killing at least two people and injuring more
than 50 others.
In Ecuador, the Tungurahua volcano forced the evacuation of
seven villages and shut the airport and schools in Guayaquil, the
country's largest city.
There is no suggestion the upsurge in volcanic activity is
related.
In Guatemala, at least 1,700 people have fled the eruption,
some 30km (19 miles) south of the capital city.
President Alvaro Colom has declared a state of emergency in
Escuintla region, Guatemala City and areas surrounding the capital.
He said two people had died and three children were missing.
One man was killed when he fell from a building while
sweeping up the ash. A TV reporter also died while covering the
eruption.
In the village of Calderas, close to the eruption, Brenda
Castaneda said her family hid under furniture as molten rocks fell on
her house.
"We thought we wouldn't survive. Our houses crumbled and
we've lost everything," she told the Associated Press from a temporary
shelter.
The volcano has covered parts of Guatemala City in ash - up
to 7cm (2.7in) thick in some areas - forcing the closure of the
country's main international airport.
Seismologists have warned of more eruptions "in the coming
days" from Pacaya - one of the most active volcanos in Central America.
Health concerns
In Ecuador, the Tungurahua volcano sent ash plumes six miles
(10km) into the air.
Several thousand people have been evacuated near Tungurahua
Several thousand people have evacuated their homes in the
area, 95 miles (150km) south-east of the capital Quito.
Strong winds blew the ash over the country's most populous
city, Guayaquil, and forced aviation officials to close the country's
main airport.
Julio Castro, who lives in Guayaquil, said he was worried
about the health of children.
"Suddenly, without warning, the ash started to fall, and it
was heavy, some even got into my eyes," he told the Associated Press.
"I can't see well now, it is annoying and we are worried for
the children, above all."
There were reports that the ash cloud was dissipating as it
drifted out over the Pacific Ocean.
WHAT IF THE WINDS SHIFT?
21 March, 15 April and latest, 15 May 2010: I-BBC reports..."The
volcano has become more active again in recent weeks"
Eruption at Iceland Volcano Slows, but Not Over
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:06 a.m. ET
August 16, 2010
LONDON (AP) -- Icelandic authorities say seismic activity is petering
out at the volcano in Iceland that caused major disruption to European
air traffic this summer.
Sigurlaug Hjaltadottir, a geophysicist with Iceland's Meteorological
Office, says seismic activity at the Eyjafjallajokul volcano has
decreased in recent weeks, though the eruption has not yet been
declared officially over.
Eyjafjallajokul (pronounced ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl) erupted April 14
for the first time in almost two centuries.
Danger to planes from the volcanic ash plume led most northern European
countries to close airspace April 15-20, grounding about 10 million
travelers worldwide.
Iceland's Civil Protection Agency says the main hazard now is from mud
flows caused by ash mixing with heavy rain.
Britain and Ireland Shut Some Airspace Due
to Ash
NYTIMES
By REUTERS
Filed at 8:24 a.m. ET
May 16, 2010
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland shut several of its airports and Britain
imposed a no-fly zone on parts of its airspace on Sunday as another
cloud of ash from a volcano in Iceland looked set to disrupt European
air travel again.
The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said three northwestern airports
were closed from early Sunday but other hubs, such as Dublin, would
remain open until later in the day. North Atlantic overflights
through
Irish-controlled airspace remain unaffected despite the cloud drifting
over the country. Ash spewed from the same volcano in Iceland wreaked
havoc on European air traffic last month.
Britain's National Air Traffic Service said a no-fly zone would be
imposed over parts of Scotland and England between 1200 GMT (8 a.m.
EDT) and 1800 GMT (2 p.m. EDT) on Sunday due to the volcanic ash but
London airports will not be affected. Manchester, Liverpool,
Doncaster, Carlisle, Humberside and East Midlands airports fall within
the no-fly zone, as do all airports in Northern Ireland, NATS said.
Airports in parts of Scotland and the Isle of Man will also be affected.
The government on Saturday warned that parts of British airspace might
have to close until Tuesday with different parts including the
southeast, where Europe's busiest airport Heathrow is located, likely
to be closed at different times.
"Long range forecasts indicate that the ash cloud may cause further
disruption into tomorrow but this is not certain," Manchester airport
said in a statement.
The volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland is continuing
to erupt with no signs of the explosive activity about to end and an
ash plume reaching heights of 25,000 feet, Britain's Met Office said.
"Winds are expected to blow mainly from the northwest for a time over
the weekend with the risk of ash affecting some parts of the UK," it
said.
"However, winds are predicted to swing into a south westerly direction
by the middle of next week, which would take most of any ash away from
the British Isles."
TEST FLIGHTS
In Ireland, the IAA said it was carrying out observation flights at a
number of altitudes and would provide an update later in the day.
Dublin airport would remain open until 1800 GMT while Shannon, an
important stop-over for flights to the United States, would be open
until 2200 GMT, it added.
Elsewhere in Europe, German airlines' association said no restriction
of German air traffic was expected due to the ash, and German airlines
were operating flights as normal. Airline Lufthansa said it was
conducting a test flight to collect data over Europe to measure the ash
concentration. In the Netherlands, an Amsterdam Schiphol airport
spokeswoman there were no expected closures in Dutch airspace.
Much of Europe's airspace was closed for six days in mid-April over
fears that ash from the Icelandic volcano would cause aircraft to
crash, causing havoc for airlines as some 100,000 flights were canceled
and stranding millions of passengers. Airlines lost $1.7 billion, the
International Air Transport Association said. Since then ash has
periodically forced the short-term closure of parts of airspace in
countries across Europe.
British Transport Minister Philip Hammand said on Saturday that from
now on five-day -- rather than the previous 18-hour -- ash prediction
charts would be made available to airlines and the public on the Met
Office forecaster's website.
Page last
updated at 12:56 GMT, Saturday, 15 May 2010 13:56 UK
Warning of ash
flight disruption
Parts of the UK's airspace are at risk of
closure from Sunday because of volcanic activity in Iceland, the
Department for Transport has said.
Disruption could affect some of the UK's busiest airports in
south-east England until Tuesday, it warned.
Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said passenger safety was
the government's top priority.
Ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano caused disruption to
thousands of flights during April.
Airspace across Europe was shut down for five days following
concerns that ash could turn to molten glass in high temperatures,
crippling plane engines.
Scientists and engineers have since revised the safe to fly
threshold, but clouds of volcanic ash have continued to drift over
Europe, causing airport closures, flight delays and cancellations.
Prediction charts
In the past week, several airports in southern Europe were
forced to close and flights were re-routed.
Ministers have agreed on Saturday that five-day ash
prediction charts would be made available on the Met Office website.
"Within this timeframe, different parts of UK airspace -
including airspace in the South East - are likely to be closed at
different times," the Department of Transport said in a statement.
Previous forecasts were only given for the following 18
hours.
Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said the five-day
forecasts would ensure "airlines, other transport providers and the
public [had] the best possible information".
But he stressed the situation "remained fluid" and the
forecasts - based on assumptions about future volcanic activity and
prevailing weather conditions - were "always liable to change".
"Nats - the UK's air traffic services provider - will advise of
any airspace closures as and when they become necessary and I urge
passengers to check with their airlines before taking any action," he
added.
Recriminations erupt in ash-fueled
aviation crisis
YAHOO
By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer
21 April 2010
AMSTERDAM – Airlines toted up losses topping $2 billion and struggled
to get hundreds of thousands of travelers back home Wednesday after a
week of crippled air travel, as questions and recriminations erupted
over Europe's chaotic response to the volcanic ash cloud. Civil
aviation authorities defended their decisions to ground fleets and
close the skies — and later to reopen them — against heated charges by
airline chiefs that the decisions were based on flawed data or
unsubstantiated fears.
The aviation crisis sparked by a volcanic eruption in Iceland left
millions in flightless limbo, created debilitating losses for airlines
and other industries and even threatened Europe's economic recovery. An
aviation group called the financial fallout worse than the three-day
worldwide shutdown after the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United
States. It was a lesson in mankind's dependency on air travel,
the vulnerability of a vital industry, and the confusion that can ensue
when each nation decides for itself how to handle a problem that
crosses borders.
The air space over most of Europe opened Wednesday after the vast,
invisible ash-laden cloud dispersed to levels deemed safe. Restrictions
remained over parts of Britain, Ireland, France and the Scandinavian
countries. Electronic boards in Europe's biggest hubs — London's
Heathrow, Paris' Charles de Gaulle and Germany's airport at Frankfurt —
showed about 80 percent of flights on schedule as airlines began
filling vacant seats with those who had been stranded for days. But
with 102,000 flights scrapped worldwide over the last week, it could
take over a week to get everyone home.
In Iceland, the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull
(ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl) remained active Wednesday — throwing magma
chunks the size of cars into the air, bubbling lava and producing
tremors. But it was not shooting ash and smoke four to six miles (6 to
10 kilometers) into the air like it did previously.
"There is much, much less ash production and the plume is low," said
Gudrun Nina Petersen, meteorologist at the Icelandic Met Office, adding
that mild winds kept the ash away from crowded air flight corridors.
But scientists at Zurich's Federal Institute of Technology said an
initial analysis of samples collected over Zurich last weekend by
special weather balloons concluded that safety concerns were warranted
and the volcano could be getting more dangerous. The
concentration of particles was "very high" at up to 600 micrograms per
cubic meter, according to Professor Thomas Peter. The composition
of the volcanic magma also appeared to be changing into a form that
could become more explosive. Peter Ulmer, a professor of petrology,
said the magma has been gaining in silicate content.
If it continues, or if the nearby Katla volcano also erupts, "this
could lead to the most feared of all eruptions: A Plinian eruption,"
Ulmer said.
That kind of eruption is named for Pliny the younger, who witnessed the
devastating of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. that destroyed Pompeii. Such an
event could last for weeks or months, he said. Civil aviation
officials said their decision to reopen terminals where thousands of
weary travelers had camped out was based on science, not on the
undeniable pressure put on them by the airlines.
"The only priority that we consider is safety. We were trying to assess
the safe operating levels for aircraft engines with ash," said Eamonn
Brennan, chief executive of Irish Aviation Authority.
"It's important to realize that we've never experienced in Europe
something like this before," he told the AP. "We needed the four days
of test flights, the empirical data, to put this together and to
understand the levels of ash that engines can absorb."
Despite their protests, the timing of some reopenings seemed dictated
by airlines' commercial pressures. British Airways raised the
stakes in its showdown with aviation authorities Tuesday by announcing
it had more than 20 long-haul planes in the air and wanted to land them
in London. Despite being told the air space was firmly shut, radar
tracking sites showed several BA planes circling in holding patterns
over England late Tuesday before the somewhat surprising announcement
that air space was to be reopened.
"We were circling for about two hours," said Carol Betton-Dunn, 37, a
civil servant who was on the first flight to land at Heathrow, from
Vancouver.
She said passengers were initially told the flight would be going to
London, then that it was heading for an unspecified European airport,
then that Shannon airport in western Ireland would be their destination.
"It's been exhausting," Betton-Dunn said.
BA chief executive Willie Walsh said by Tuesday it had become clear the
lockdown was excessive.
"I don't believe it was necessary to impose a blanket ban on all U.K.
airspace last Thursday," he said. "My personal belief is that we could
have safely continued operating for a period of time."
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines also sent aircraft toward Amsterdam before
Dutch air space officially reopened, said Edwin van Zwol, president of
the Dutch Pilots Association. Lufthansa demanded and received a
waiver from German authorities that allowed them to bring 15,000
passengers back to Germany on Tuesday, flying at low altitude. Other
Germany-based airlines also received waivers, for a total of 800
flights, even though German airspace was not officially opened until
Wednesday.
Van Zwol, a veteran Boeing 777 captain, was critical of European
authorities for failing to consult with the airlines or pilots.
"They put all the experts on the sidelines," he said. "(Airlines) are
used to this. They deal with volcanic situations all over the world on
a daily basis, so they are quite capable of making decisions."
The European decision to partially reopen airspace did not come until
the fifth day of the crisis, when transport ministers of the affected
states met by teleconference. The plan carved up the sky into relative
zones of safety where the flight ban remained in place or was lifted
according to the concentration of ash. Ryanair chief executive
Michael O'Leary slammed that slow response.
"It might have made sense to ground flights for a day or two. That's
understandable. But there should have been a much faster response by
the governments, the transport ministers and the regulators," he told
The Associated Press on Wednesday.
But Tomio Okamura of the Association of Czech Travel Agents said
despite huge losses his industry was happier being safe than sorry.
"It would be much bigger a catastrophe for us in case of any passenger
plane crash. That would have a fatal, long-term consequences for the
industry," Okamura said in Prague.
In Berlin, Giovanni Bisignani, the head of the International Air
Transport Association, called the economic fallout "devastating" and
urged European governments to compensate airlines for lost revenues
like the U.S. government did following the 9/11 terror attacks.
At one stage, he said 29 percent of global aviation and 1.2 million
passengers a day were affected by the airspace closures. Airlines were
on track to lose $2.2 billion, he said.
Amid the sniping and bickering, tens of thousands of travelers remained
stuck and anxious to get home. Bob and Maureen Hixon from Boston
had been in London since Friday but could only get seats out next
weekend. So they went to in Heathrow hoping for an earlier flight,
concerned about their children and their 93-year-old mother.
"I have never been worried about flying in my life before today," said
Hixon, a 55-year-old mortgage broker. "But I'm not thinking about that.
I'm just thinking about getting home."
But uncertainty still remained about the safety of the volcanic
debris. The Finnish Air Force said volcanic ash dust was found in
the engine of an F-18 Hornet jet but it caused no significant damage.
Officials said "contaminants on its inside surfaces" of the
fighter-bomber's engine would be further analyzed.
A test flight by the German Aerospace Center found ash over eastern
Germany that was comparable in density to a plume of dust above the
Saharan desert. The center reported no damage to the airplane. A
French weather service plane also took samples of the air Tuesday and
found no volcanic ash problems. Those results appeared to
contradict the potentially dire conclusions by the Swiss scientists.
Still the crisis may jolt the European Union to step up plans to
eliminate borders in the sky that have endured unchallenged 50 years
after they began melting away on the ground. The flaws in the
system, in which each country maintains sovereignty over its own
airspace, "cannot be ignored much longer," said EU spokeswoman Helen
Kearns.
The EU has 27 national air traffic control networks, 60 air traffic
centers and hundreds of approach centers and towers. The airspace is a
jigsaw puzzle of more than 650 sectors. Anthony Concil, a
spokesman for IATA industry group, said the system was "a continuing
disaster."
"For decades the industry has been asking for a single European sky.
The economic and social costs of the uncoordinated approach to this
crisis by Europe is the biggest argument ever" for that," he said.
At the port of Bilbao in northern Spain, more than 2,000 weary Britons
packed a ferry Wednesday and headed for England. The ferry, which
normally takes 1,000 people on a 30-hour trip to Portsmouth in southern
England, carried around 2,200 people this time and asked strangers to
share sleeper cabins.
Sam Gunn, 42, from Birmingham endured two hungry days sleeping at JFK
Airport in New York after his flight home to England was canceled. He
settled for a flight to Madrid, then caught a long bus up to Bilbao to
reach the ferry.
"Oh, I've been traveling all over the world," he said, chuckling.
Italian
scientist flies into the belly
of the beast to capture Mother Nature's meltdown
New York Post
By JAMES FANELLI
Last Updated: 11:38 AM, April 18, 2010
Posted: 4:44 AM, April 18, 2010
That ash makes quite a flash.
Intrepid Italian scientist Marco Fulle, 51, snapped photos of
lightning, swirling black smoke and spewing lava at Iceland's
Eyjafjallajokull Volcano on Friday night from a helicopter hovering
only a third of a mile above the fiery black cauldron. The mouth of the
volcano is shrouded in clouds, as ash and fire spews out to the
southeast in a 30,000-foot-high plume heading toward Europe.
Though the volcano is a 2,000-degree inferno, the temperature outside
the copter was a chilly 14 degrees. Adding to the eruptions' ferocity
is the volcano's location beneath a glacial ice cap. The molten rock
and snow are mixing, leading to explosions of steam.
The lightning comes from static electricity caused by the ash.
Despite the danger, Fulle, who has traveled the world chasing
volcanoes, said "it's where I feel most at home."
Fulle arrived Monday and was ready to snap when Eyjafjallajokull
started to blow Wednesday. "I've been quite impressed by it so far," he
told The Post.
In 1821, the volcano began a two-year eruption. Scientists still don't
know how long this current eruption will last, or how much ash will be
produced, said Chris Waythomas, head scientist at the US Geological
Survey's Alaska Volcano Observatory.
Ash may
hover for days over uncertain Europe
YAHOO
By SYLVIA HUI and ANGELA CHARLTON, Associated Press Writers
17 April 2010
PARIS – The Icelandic volcano that has kept much of Europe land-bound
is far from finished spitting out its grit, and offered up new
mini-eruptions Saturday that raise concerns about longer-term damage to
world air travel and trade. Facing days to come under the
volcano's
unpredictable, ashy plume, Europeans are looking at temporary airport
layoffs and getting creative with flight patterns to try to weather
this extraordinary event.
Modern Europe has never seen such a travel disruption. Air space across
a swath from Britain to Ukraine was closed and set to stay that way
until Sunday or Monday in some countries, affecting airports from New
Zealand to San Francisco. Millions of passengers have had plans foiled
or delayed. Activity in the volcano at the heart of this
increased
early Saturday, and showed no sign of abating.
"There doesn't seem to be an end in sight," Icelandic geologist Magnus
Tumi Gudmundsson told The Associated Press on Saturday. "The activity
has been quite vigorous overnight, causing the eruption column to grow."
Scientists say that because the volcano is situated below a glacial ice
cap, the magma is being cooled quickly, causing explosions and plumes
of grit that can be catastrophic to plane engines, depending on
prevailing winds. In Iceland, winds dragged the ashes over new
farmland, to the southwest of the glacier, causing farmers to scramble
to secure their cattle and board up windows.
With the sky blackened out and the wind driving a fine, sticky dust,
dairy farmer Berglind Hilmarsdottir teamed up with neighbors to round
her animals and get them to shelter. The ash is toxic — the fluoride
causes long-term bone damage that makes teeth fall out and bones break.
"This is bad. There are no words for it," said Hilmarsdottir, whose
pastures near the town of Skogar were already covered in a gray paste
of ash.
Forecasters say light prevailing winds in Europe — and large amounts of
unmelted glacial ice above the volcano — mean that the situation is
unlikely to change quickly.
"Currently the U.K. and much of Europe is under the influence of high
pressure, which means winds are relatively light and the dispersal of
the cloud is slow," said Graeme Leitch, a meteorologist at Britain's
National Weather Service. "We don't expect a great deal of change over
the next few days."
A Dutch geologist who is in Iceland observing the volcano, Edwin Zanen,
described it to Dutch state broadcaster NOS:
"We're at 25 kilometers (16 miles) distance from the crater now. We're
looking at a sun-soaked ice shelf, and above it is looming a cloud of
ashes of oh, 4 to 5 kilometers (2.5 to 3 miles) high. There are
lightening flashes in it. It's a real inferno we're looking at.
"There's absolutely no sign that the thing is calming down. On the
contrary, we can see that at this moment it's extraordinarily active,"
he said.
With the prospect of days under the cloud of ash, pilots and aviation
officials sought to dodge the dangerous grit by adjusting altitude
levels. Germany's airspace ban allows for low-level flights to go
ahead under so-called visual flight rules, in which pilots don't rely
on their instruments. Lufthansa took advantage of that to fly 10
empty
planes to Frankfurt from Munich on Saturday in order to have them in
the right place when the restrictions are lifted, airline spokesman
Wolfgang Weber said. The planes flew at about 3,000 meters (9,843
feet) — well below their usual altitude — in close coordination with
air traffic control.
KLM is carrying out a test flight from Schiphol to Dusseldorf at 3,000
meters or lower, hoping for approval to carry out more low-altitude
flights in Europe if the ash problem continues.
The Swiss looked the other direction — above the ash cloud. The Swiss
Federal Office of Civil Aviation began allowing flights Saturday above
Swiss air space as long as the aircraft were at least at 36,000 feet
(11,000 meters). It also allowed flights at lower altitudes under
visual flight rules, aimed at small, private aircraft.
All air space in Poland — hosting a huge state funeral for late
President Lech Kaczynski — remained closed Saturday to flights above
the cloud level of 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) because of the ash
cloud. Some low-level flights are being allowed in the south,
however,
which is how the Polish Air Force will be able to ferry the coffins of
Kaczynski and his wife from Warsaw to Krakow aboard a prop-powered
military cargo plane early Sunday morning.
Several world leaders, including President Barack Obama, had to abandon
plans to attend the funeral because of ash-related disruptions.
European businesses are testing their flexibility to cope with this new
crisis. The aviation industry, already reeling from a punishing
period, is facing at least $200 million in losses every day, according
to the International Air Transport Association.
Scandinavian airline operator SAS AB said it has given notice of a
temporary layoff of up to 2,500 ground service staff in Norway as a
result of the flight disruptions. Airline spokeswoman Elisabeth Manzi
said it is a precautionary move, and that said eventual temporary
layoffs may not affect all 2,500 notified. Budget airline
Norwegian
ASA, losing $1.5 million to $1.7 million a day because of the
ash-driven closures, is holding meetings with unions Monday to discuss
potential temporary layoffs, spokeswoman Asta Braathen said.
"If we are looking at the future, we cannot maintain the cost of all
this forever," said Geert Sciot, communications manager of Brussels
Airlines, citing such costs as providing buses to passengers meant to
fly from Athens or Lisbon to Brussels.
German mail and logistics company Deutsche Post DHL AG rerouted
packages that were supposed to be flown via the company's Leipzig,
Germany, hub via Italy and other points south, while those already in
the areas affected were diverted to trucks and trains, spokesman Stefan
Hess said.
"The longer it lasts, the more difficult it gets in principle — but a
cloud like this isn't static," he said.
Producers of Italy's milky white, prized buffalo mozzarella, which is
highly perishable, pondered their options.
"In the next couple of days we have to decide," said Vito Amendolara,
head of the farmers lobby Coldiretti's office in Campania, the region
around Naples famed for the cheese. "We cannot sell buffalo milk as it
is, because it is too fatty and is meant solely for production of
mozzarella. We will either have to throw away the milk or find
alternative markets" by heavily promoting it locally.
Around the world, anxious passengers have told stories of missed
weddings, business deals and holidays because of the ominous plume.
Stranded passengers reported the delays were causing financial
hardships. Some had to check out of hotels and sleep in airports.
"It's like a refugee camp," said Rhiannon Thomas, of Birmingham,
England, describing the scene at New York's Kennedy Airport.
Her family spent the night at the airport Friday, and may be there for
days before they can get a flight home. "At least we got beds," said
Thomas' mother, Pat, referring to the hundreds of narrow blue cots
brought in to JFK's Terminal 4. "Some people slept on cardboard."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was heading homeward in an armored car
along an Italian highway Saturday — continuing a long and circuitous
return from the United States. Merkel was diverted to Lisbon,
spent
the night in the Portuguese capital, then flew to Rome on Saturday.
From there, she and her delegation set off by road toward northern
Italy's South Tyrol region for another overnight stay. Late Saturday
night, Merkel's government announced she would not be able to make it
to Poland for Sunday's state funeral.
Pope Benedict XVI's flight to Malta for a weekend pilgrimage was one of
the few to depart Saturday from Rome. Greeting journalists aboard the
plane, the pontiff told them he hoped they would have "nice trip
without this dark cloud that has arrived on the rest of Europe."
Southern Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl)
volcano began erupting for the second time in a month Wednesday,
sending ash several miles (kilometers) into the air.
In Iceland, torrents of water have carried away chunks of ice the size
of small houses. More floods from melting waters are expected as long
as the volcano keeps erupting — and in 1821, the same volcano managed
to erupt for more than a year.
Flight
disruptions in Europe get even
worse
YAHOO
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer
16 April 2010
LONDON – Thick drifts of volcanic ash blanketed parts of rural Iceland
on Friday as a vast, invisible plume of grit drifted over Europe,
emptying the skies of planes and sending hundreds of thousands in
search of a hotel room, a train ticket or a rental car.
Polish officials worried that the ash cloud could threaten the arrival
of world leaders for Sunday's state funeral for President Lech
Kaczynski and his wife Maria in the southern city of Krakow.
So far, President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and
German Chancellor Angela Merkel are among those coming and no one has
canceled. Kaczynski's family insisted Friday they wanted the funeral to
go forward as planned but there was no denying the ash cloud was moving
south and east.
The air traffic agency Eurocontrol said almost two-thirds of Europe's
flights were canceled Friday, as air space remained largely closed in
Britain and across large chunks of north and central Europe.
"The skies are totally empty over northern Europe," said Brian Flynn,
deputy head of Eurocontrol, adding "there will be some significant
disruption of European air traffic tomorrow."
The agency said about 16,000 of Europe's usual 28,000 daily flights
were canceled Friday — twice as many as were canceled a day earlier.
Only about 120 trans-Atlantic flights reached European airports
compared to 300 on a normal day, and about 60 flights between Asia and
Europe were canceled.
The International Air Transport Association said the volcano was
costing the industry at least $200 million a day.
Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) glacier
began erupting for the second time in a month on Wednesday, sending ash
several miles (kilometers) into the air. Winds pushed the plume south
and east across Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia and into the heart of
Europe.
Gray ash settled in drifts near the glacier, swirling in the air and
turning day into night. Authorities told people in the area with
respiratory problems to stay indoors, and advised everyone to wear
masks and protective goggles outside.
In the major cities, travel chaos reigned. Extra trains were put on in
Amsterdam and lines to buy train tickets were so long that the rail
company handed out free coffee.
Train operator Eurostar said it was carrying almost 50,000 passengers
between London, Paris and Brussels. Thalys, a high-speed venture of the
French, Belgian and German rail companies, was allowing passengers to
buy tickets even if trains were fully booked.
Page last updated at 13:33 GMT,
Thursday, 15 April 2010 14:33 UK; 13:11 for text
British airspace has been shut down because of a huge volcanic ash
cloud from a volcano in Iceland.
Iceland volcano:
Why a cloud of ash has grounded flights
|
ANALYSIS
By Victoria Gill, Science
reporter, BBC News
|
The volcanic ash cloud reached about
55,000ft, Eurocontrol says
|
More than 1,000km from the event itself, Iceland's second
volcanic eruption in the space of a month has caused flights in the UK
to be grounded.
Scientists and aviation authorities are continuing to monitor
a plume of volcanic ash that is moving southwards over the UK.
The entirety of UK airspace will be closed from noon on
Thursday.
National Air Traffic Services said: "No flights will be
permitted in UK controlled airspace other than emergency situations"
until 1800 BST at the earliest.
The eruption ejected the plume, which is made up of fine rock
particles, up to 11km into the atmosphere.
"This ash cloud is now drifting with the high altitude
winds," said Dr David Rothery, a volcano researcher from the UK's Open
University.
"The main mass is over Scandinavia, but it is also over the
north of Great Britain and is likely to spread south over the whole
island by the end of [Thursday]."
The plume is so high that it will neither be visible nor pose
a threat to the health of humans on the ground, although Dr Rothery
added that we may have a "spectacularly red sunset" on Thursday
evening.
The major concern is that the ash could pose a very serious
hazard to aircraft engines.
Dr Dougal Jerram, an earth scientist at the University of
Durham, UK, explained: "Eruptions which are charged with gas start to
froth and expand as they reach the surface.
"This results in explosive eruptions and this fine ash being
sent up into the atmosphere.
"If it is ejected high enough, the ash can reach the high
winds and be dispersed around the globe, for example, from Iceland to
Europe. These high winds are exactly where the aeroplanes cruise."
Emergency developments
Airports operator BAA confirmed that all flights at Heathrow,
Stansted and Gatwick would be suspended from midday.
"Air traffic restrictions have very properly been applied,"
said Dr Rothery. "If volcanic ash particles are ingested into a jet
engine, they accumulate and clog the engines with molten glass."
In 1982, British Airways and Singapore Airways jumbo jets
lost all their engines when they flew into an ash cloud over Indonesia.
Reports said that the ash sandblasted the windscreen and
clogged the engines, which only restarted when enough of the molten ash
solidified and broke off.
A KLM flight had a similar experience in 1989 over Alaska.
Stewart John, a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering
and former president of the Royal Aeronautical Society, explained that
the ash can cause severe damage.
"This dust really is nasty stuff," he told BBC News. "It's
extremely fine and if it gets into a jet engine, it blocks up all of
the ventilation holes that bleed in cooling air.
"Jet engines operate at about 2,000C, and the metals can't
take that. The engine will just shut down."
In the case of the 1982 British Airways flight, Dr John
explained, when the plane emerged from the cloud, the pilot repeatedly
tried and failed to restart the engines.
"They were going down and down, and had just about accepted
that they would have to ditch.
"But, at the last minute, one engine started. By repeatedly
turning the engine over and having a clean airflow going through, he
managed to blow the ash out."
Dr Rothery explained that as a result of those incidents,
emergency procedure manuals for pilots were changed.
"Previously, when engines began to fail the standard practice
had been to increase power. This just makes the ash problem worse," he
said.
"Nowadays, a pilot will throttle back and lose height so as
to drop below the ash cloud as soon as possible. The inrush of cold,
clean air is usually enough to shatter the glass and unclog the
engines.
"Even so, the forward windows may have become so badly
abraded by ash that they are useless, and the plane has to land on
instruments."
Dr John concluded: "We do not know how long this will last.
"It's like a typhoon - because you can't fly through it, you
can't directly monitor it, so we have rely on satellite images and to
err on the side of extreme caution."
Volcano erupts in Iceland, hundreds
evacuated
YAHOO
By GUDJON HELGASON and PAISLEY DODDS, Associated Press Writers
21 March 2010
REYKJAVIK, Iceland – A volcano erupted near a glacier in southern
Iceland, shooting ash and molten lava into the air and forcing the
evacuation Sunday of hundreds of people from nearby villages.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the
Eyjafjallajokull volcano, but a state of emergency was declared and
scientists feared the eruption could trigger a larger and potentially
more dangerous eruption at the Katla volcano. Saturday's
eruption, which occurred just before midnight (2000 EDT, 8 p.m. EDT),
came weeks after a series of small earthquakes. Television footage
showed lava flows along the fissure.
"This was a rather small and peaceful eruption but we are concerned
that it could trigger an eruption at the nearby Katla volcano, a
vicious volcano that could cause both local and global damage," said
Pall Einarsson, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland's Institute
of Earth Science.
Authorities evacuated 450 people between the farming village of
Hvolsvollur and the fishing village of Vik, some 100 miles (160
kilometers) southeast of the capital, Reykjavik, said Vidir Reynisson
of the Icelandic Civil Protection Department. Evacuation centers
were set up near the town of Hella. The most immediate threat was to
livestock because of the caustic gases.
"We had to leave all our animals behind," Elin Ragnarsdottir, a
47-year-old farmer, told RUV, Iceland's national broadcaster from an
evacuation center. "We got a call and a text message ... and we just
went."
Iceland sits on a large volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic
ridge. Volcanic eruptions, common throughout Iceland's history, are
often triggered by seismic activity when the Earth's plates move and
when magma from deep underground pushes its way to the surface.
Scientists in Iceland have been monitoring the recent activity using
seismometers and global positioning instruments. Like earthquakes,
however, it is difficult to predict the exact timing of eruptions.
"The volcano has been inflating since the beginning of the year, both
rising and swelling," Einarsson told The Associated Press. "Even though
we were seeing increased seismic activity, it could have been months or
years before we saw an eruption like this ... we couldn't say that
there was an imminent risk for the area."
The population around the Eyjafjallajokull volcano and the glacier that
bears the same name is sparse — unlike the area around the Katla
volcano, which is also covered by glacial ice and poses a greater
danger of floods, according to Einarsson.
"One of the possible scenarios we're looking at is that this small
eruption could bring about something bigger. This said, we can't
speculate on when that could happen," he said in an interview.
Authorities initially feared the eruption occurred below the
100-square-mile (160 square-kilometer) Eyjafjallajokull glacier and
could have triggered floods if the glacial ice melted. But after an
aerial survey Sunday they concluded that the eruption struck near the
glacier in an area where there was no ice.
"This is the best possible place for an eruption," said Tumi
Gudumundsson, a geologist at the University of Iceland.
There hasn't been an eruption near the Eyjafjallajokull glacier since
1821. The Icelandic Civil Aviation Administration ordered
aircraft to stay 120 nautical miles away from the volcano area due to
low visibility in some areas. All domestic flights were canceled
until further notice, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service
reported, but Reykjavik appeared to be unaffected with clear
visibility. Three Icelandair flights from the U.S. — departing
from Seattle, Boston and Orlando, Florida — bound for Keflavik airport
in Reykjavik were turned back to Boston, leaving about 500 people
waiting, the airline said.
Flights to Stockholm, London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt were scheduled to
leave Sunday but a flight to Oslo was canceled and passengers were
being rerouted. The airline expected further delays throughout Sunday.
First settled by Vikings in the 9th century, Iceland is known as the
land of fire and ice because of its volcanos and glaciers. During the
Middle Ages, Icelanders called the Hekla volcano the "Gateway to Hell,"
believing that souls were dragged below. Hekla is Iceland's most active
volcano. In the mid-1780s, the Laki volcano erupted, prompting
scores to die of famine when livestock and crops were destroyed.
Iceland, an island with a population of just 320,000, has been better
known recently for its financial troubles.
After a decade of dizzying economic growth that saw Icelandic banks and
companies snap up assets around the world, the global financial crisis
wreaked political and economic havoc on the island nation. Iceland's
banks collapsed within a week in October 2008, its krona currency
plummeted and protests toppled the government. The new
left-of-center government has been trying to negotiate a plan to repay
$3.5 billion to Britain and $1.8 billion to the Netherlands as
compensation for funds that those governments paid to citizens who had
accounts with Icesave, an Icelandic Internet bank that failed along
with its parent, Landsbanki.
Icelandic voters this month resoundingly rejected a $5.3 billion plan
to repay that debt.
Redoubt settles a bit but is building
dome...we all know what that can mean, based upon Hollywood versions of
this natural act.
AIR TRAFFIC: Ups and fedex reroute some flights to outside hubs.
Anchorage
Daily News
By JAMES HALPIN and
ELIZABETH BLUEMINK
(04/01/09 18:41:01)
Mount Redoubt continued blowing gas, steam and ash Wednesday as
officials worked on plans to forestall risks to the oil tanks at the
Drift River terminal, located in the volcano's shadow.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory reported continuing weak volcanic
tremors and with occasional small earthquakes taking place on the
stratovolcano about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage.
A continuous ash plume reaching about 14,000 feet above sea level was
being pushed by easterly winds that shifted in the afternoon. No
ashfall alerts were in effect, with most of the fallout taking place
near the volcano.
Scientists say the volcano could continue smoldering for days or weeks
before settling down. A dome appears to be forming from cooling lava in
Redoubt's crater and scientists were continuing to warn explosive
activity could continue.
"I would imagine we'll get some further large event," said geophysicist
and field engineer Cyrus Read. "I think the likelihood is that we will
in the form of a dome collapse."
The volcano has caused some significant snags for air traffic, although
Wednesday passenger flights appeared to mostly be moving as scheduled.
But some major cargo carriers were redirecting some of their traffic.
FedEx spokeswoman Sally Davenport said the company has cut back work
hours in Anchorage but all employees are still receiving their
paychecks. FedEx is still bringing cargo planes to Alaska for local
shipments but most of the cargo flights to and from Asia that land in
Anchorage are being routed through Oakland instead.
UPS has sent some of its Anchorage employees home without pay due to
the volcanic unrest but is bringing them back in when there are
packages to sort, said spokesman Michael Mangeot. UPS moved most of its
international cargo flights to temporary hubs in Portland, Seattle and
Honolulu but is still making deliveries to Anchorage.
Concern for the Drift River oil terminal also continued. There are 6
million gallons of oil currently stored in the river's floodplain, and
four workers were on site Wednesday clearing up mud and debris, paving
the way for larger crews to arrive, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Sara
Francis said.
The area got a soaking after a large eruption March 23 launched a
mudslide, but a $20 million dike installed at the terminal after
Redoubt's last eruption in 1989 has so far held steady in protecting
the tanks and their contents from disaster.
A unified command consisting of the Alaska Department of Environmental
Conservation, the Coast Guard and Cook Inlet Pipeline Co. that was
established over the weekend to handle the response was still
developing plans for getting a tanker to the terminal dock, about a
mile offshore, to unload some of the oil, Francis said.
A Tesoro tanker was being eyed for the operation and officials were
trying to schedule a window for it to get there, she said.
Redoubt ash falling in
Homer; planes grounded throughout Southcentral
Anchorage Daily News
By GEORGE BRYSON, KYLE HOPKINS and JULIA O'MALLEY
Published: March 26th, 2009 09:06 AM
Last Modified: March 26th, 2009 05:09 PM
Ash from Redoubt volcano is falling across the southern Kenai
Peninsula, residents report, and commercial airline traffic throughout
Southcentral Alaska has come to a near halt because of airborne ash.
Redoubt erupted twice this morning, including a huge explosion
at 9:24 that sent a cloud of ash to 65,000 feet, higher than any since
the mountain came to life on Sunday night. Alaska Airlines
announced
earlier today that it's canceled all flights in and out of Anchorage
for the rest of the day, and other airlines are canceling flights as
well. No ash is expected to fall in Anchorage, but it may reach
the
upper atmosphere just south of city, Weather Service meteorologist Amy
Bedal said.
Ash began falling in Homer shortly before 2 p.m., where the city sent
workers home early, said City Manager Walt Wrede. Ash was also reported
from Kasilof south to Nanwalek. A purplish plume blocked the view
across Cook Inlet and the smell of sulfur wafted into town, he said.
Businesses closed up. By 3 p.m. it was falling harder, and the
Weather
Service was predicting the area might receive up to one-eighth inch.
The sky darkened above Nanwalik around 1:30 p.m, said Charlemagne
Active, a health aide at the clinic there. As the cloud moved in from
the direction of Homer, the air became hazy, and ash dusted the
buildings.
"There's not very much,"she said. "It covers the snow, but not
completely."
Trace amounts of ash are possible to the north, including Soldotna and
Cooper Landing, the Weather Service said. Higher-level winds
above
30,000 feet are expected to push the top of the plume toward the
northern edge of the Kenai Peninsula near Turnagain Arm, Bedal
said.
But those higher winds will probably be too strong and the ash
particles that attain that height are too light to reach the ground,
she said.
The Weather Service has advised the Federal Aviation
Administration to prohibit flights through a large area east of Redoubt
that includes all of the Kenai Peninsula, Prince William Sound and a
portion of the Gulf of Alaska. A major air route from Seattle to
Anchorage normally uses that air space, Bedal said. Anchorage
International Airport remains officially open and some flights are
still coming and going, said Everts Air Cargo Operations Manager Peter
Mejia.
"We currently just launched two airplanes after being on hold all day."
Mejia said the planes are older models that are less susceptible to
ash, and don't fly at the same altitudes as jets that other airlines
have grounded. Era Aviation has put all its flights on hold, said
vice
president Mike LeNorman. The commuter airline canceled flights today
from Anchorage to Kodiak, Homer and Bethel and two flights from
Anchorage to Kenai. FedEx also canceled flights out of its
Anchorage
cargo hub, and re-routed or turned back flights to avoid the city.
"We didn't want any of our planes to get stuck there. We don't have any
planes that are on the ground in Anchorage," said spokeswoman Deborah
Willig.
Peninsula Airways canceled 17 flights today, the company said. At
Elmendorf Air Force Base, training flights have been scaled back and
the Air Force sent several aircraft, including four fighter jets, to
other air force bases.
"We definitely err on the side of caution because we have billions of
dollars of aircraft," said Capt. Candice Adams
Kenai Peninsula Borough schools will remain open, Assistant
Superintendent Dave Jones said.
"The amounts (of ashfall) that we're being told could be coming don't
warrant a school closure," he said.
However, the school district has stockpiled thousands of breathing
masks and is prepared to distribute them to every student on the
Peninsula if the ash arrives before they leave school, he said.
Dialed
back to code orange yesterday, Redoubt first exploded this morning at
8:34, according to the AVO. It sent an ash cloud to at least 30,000
feet above sea level. Following the 9:24 a.m. explosion, a
seismometer
positioned on the ground east of the volcano's summit recorded the
signal of a large mud flow, called a lahar, AVO geophysicist Stephanie
Prejean said.
The Weather Service subsequently issued a flash flood warning for the
Drift River, which connects the Drift Glacier on the east slope of
Redoubt to Cook Inlet, 27 miles downstream. An AVO team was
scheduled
to depart Anchorage this afternoon on a helicopter fly-by of the river
and volcano to observe the latest eruption's after-effects.
Unlike earlier this week, the explosions this morning came without any
short-term seismic warning, Prejean said.
That wasn't a total surprise, she said, since earlier this week the
volcano cleared its throat and is now breathing freely.
"At this point we have a wide-open system, and so probably for most of
the rest of the eruption we don't expect to see short-term warnings,"
Prejean said.
Whether this episode will last as long -- or longer -- than the
four-month span of explosions that occurred during Redoubt's most
recent eruptive episode in the winter of 1989-1990 isn't clear, she
said.
"We just don't know how much magma is down there that needs to get out."
AT LEFT, HURRICANE (GUSTAF); 2010 SEASON UPON US...OIL
SLICK IMPACT LOOMS.
The
U.S. 2010 Hurricane Season:
Hermine continues strengthening as it turns to northwest
YAHOO
Posted: Sep 06, 2010 4:24 AM EDT
Updated: Sep 06, 2010 11:04 AM EDT MIAMI, FL (AP) -
Forecasters said Tropical Storm Hermine strengthened even more in the
southwestern Gulf of Mexico as it took a slight turn to the northwest
Monday morning.
The system was located at 23.4 north and 95.8 west, or about 205 miles
south-southeast of Brownsville, TX, at 10 a.m. Maximum sustained
winds were 50 mph and it was moving north-northwest at 13 mph.
Hurricane watches have been issued which extend from Rio San Fernando,
Mexico northward to Baffin Bay, TX. Hermine is expected to
continue moving toward the north-northwest for the next day or two.
Meteorologists said the center of circulation is predicted to be near
the coast of northeastern Mexico or extreme southern Texas late Monday
night or early Tuesday morning. They added some more
strengthening is forecast before Hermine makes landfall and the storm
could possibly reach Category 1 hurricane classification. It
formed earlier in the day, becoming the eighth tropical storm of the
2010 Atlantic hurricane season.
Copyright 2010 WAFB. All rights
reserved.
Earl
fizzles
Island evacuations start as Earl nears
East Coast
By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer Mike Baker, Associated
Press Writer 14 mins ago
NAGS HEAD, N.C. – Hurricane Earl steamed toward the Eastern Seaboard on
Wednesday as communities from North Carolina to New England kept a
close eye on the forecast, worried that even a slight shift in the
storm's predicted offshore track could put millions of people in the
most densely populated part of the country in harm's way.
Vacationers along North Carolina's dangerously exposed Outer Banks took
advantage of the typical picture-perfect day just before a hurricane
arrives to pack their cars and flee inland, cutting short their summer
just before Labor Day weekend.
The governors of North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland declared a state
of emergency, sea turtle nests on one beach were scooped up and moved
to safety, and the crew of the Navy's USS Cole rushed to get home to
Norfolk, Va., on Wednesday ahead of the bad weather. The destroyer was
supposed to return later this week from a seven-month assignment
fighting piracy off Somalia.
Farther up the East Coast, emergency officials urged people to have
disaster plans and supplies ready and weighed whether to order
evacuations as they watched the latest maps from the National Hurricane
Center — namely, the "cone of uncertainty" showing the broad path the
storm could take.
Earl was expected to reach the North Carolina coast late Thursday and
wheel to the northeast, staying offshore while making its way up the
Eastern Seaboard. But forecasters said it could move in closer, perhaps
coming ashore in North Carolina, crossing New York's Long Island and
passing over the Boston metropolitan area and Cape Cod.
That could make the difference between modestly wet and blustery
weather on the one hand, and dangerous storm surge, heavy rain and
hurricane-force winds on the other.
"Everyone is poised and ready to pull the trigger if Earl turns west,
but our hope is that this thing goes out to sea and we're all golfing
this weekend," said Peter Judge, a spokesman for the Massachusetts
Emergency Management Agency.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Earl was a powerful Category 4 hurricane
centered more than 680 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., with
winds of 135 mph.
The only evacuations ordered were on Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands,
part of the Outer Banks. Just a light breeze was stirring and there
wasn't a cloud in the sky along the Outer Banks — a ribbon of barrier
islands a dozen miles or more off the mainland, connected to the rest
of the world by a couple of bridges and a ferry. Along the lone
highway, hundreds of cars backed up at one of the bridges.
Brittany Grippaldi and her family took advantage of the good weather to
pack up their Ford Explorer in Hatteras and head home to New Jersey.
"It's sad because reality hasn't really set in because it is so
beautiful out. It's like, `Oh, I don't want to leave this,' but it's
like the calm before the storm," said Grippaldi, who hoped to beat the
traffic.
Chuck Costas also wasn't taking any chances, interrupting his two-week
vacation to move inland from the cottage he rented on Nags Head on the
Outer Banks. Large waves already crashing ashore uncomfortably close to
the home.
"It is what it is," he said. "We have no control over it. If we lose a
couple days, it's not a huge loss."
Hurricane warnings were posted for most of the North Carolina coast,
with a hurricane watch extending to Delaware and part of Massachusetts.
In Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell activated the National Guard and sent
200 troops to the Hampton Roads area on Chesapeake Bay. The area was
not expected to get the brunt of Earl, but many remember the surprise
fury of Hurricane Isabel, which killed 33 people and caused $1.6
billion in damage in September 2003.
"I'd rather be safe and get our troops and state police in place by
Thursday night," the governor said.
Emergency officials on Cape Cod braced for their first major storm
since Hurricane Bob brought winds of up to 100 mph to coastal New
England in August 1991. Marinas encouraged people to take their boats
out of the water now instead of waiting for Labor Day.
Also on Wednesday, the seventh tropical storm of the season formed far
out in the Atlantic. Tropical Storm Gaston had sustained winds of 40
mph and is expected to strengthen into a hurricane this weekend as it
moves toward the Leeward Islands.
Tropical Storm Fiona remained north of the Caribbean with winds of 60
mph and is expected to move toward Bermuda over the next several days.
State Prepares For Hurricane Earl
By RINKER BUCK, rbuck@courant.com
12:57 PM EDT, August 31, 2010
Hurricane Earl is "taking a track to our east," putting Connecticut on
the western side of the storm, Joe Furey, FoxCT meteorologist, said
early Tuesday afternoon.
That's a good thing, he said. Connecticut still may get gusty
wind and rain Friday, he said, but "on the western fringe, we're spared
significant hit from the storm."
"As long as it stays to our east, we're in good shape," Furey said. He
can't say the same for people who expect to be on Cape Cod in
Massachusetts, however.
Of course, it's only Tuesday, and things may change, he warned.
"Any deviation to the track could make a difference," Furey said.
"We're on the better side of the storm — the western side," Furey said.
"But how close we are will determine how our weather is Friday
afternoon and evening.
"It should a fast-moving storm once it gets up this way," Furey said.
"It should be done by midnight Friday."
Earl, which was upgraded to a Category 4 hurricane on Monday, formed in
the Caribbean over the weekend. Local meteorologists and officials
tracking the storm from the National Hurricane Center in Miami predict
that Earl will gather speed and strength as it moves toward the coastal
United States.
"Our biggest fear is a storm that hits New York City and Long Island
and then pulls moisture out of Long Island Sound while putting us in
the northeast quadrant of the storm, which is usually the worst area of
such weather events," Furey said Monday. "We're not going to know for
sure about this one until later in the week."
But a storm diverted toward Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard
could easily strand the thousands of Connecticut residents vacationing
there during the week before Labor Day weekend.
A major hurricane hasn't hit coastal New England since 1985, when
Hurricane Gloria slammed Long Island and then New England, causing
eight deaths and an estimated $900 million in property damage. But
meteorologists consider it a statistical fluke that Connecticut has not
been hit by a major hurricane since then. After Hurricane Katrina
devastated New Orleans in 2005, highlighting the lack of preparedness
in many American cities, emergency planners have focused on improving
the I-95 corridor's preparation for a storm.
But these planners also say that recent building trends and lifestyle
changes have transformed the East Coast into a veritable obstacle
course for residents during a storm. The construction of large coastal
condominium complexes and backyards converted into barbecue cooking
areas and gazebo lounges have created the huge potential for debris to
be blown across major roads just as residents are attempting to
evacuate before a storm.
Scott DeVico, a spokesman for the state Department of Emergency
Management and Homeland Security, said that Connecticut has taken many
steps since Katrina to establish a sequenced process for dealing with a
storm as it develops off the coast. The state Emergency Operations
Center at the Hartford Armory maintains detailed maps of Connecticut's
shoreline towns, showing which residential areas and roads would be
covered by the storm surges of a hurricane. The state holds hurricane
preparedness conferences every year for emergency management officials
from all 169 Connecticut towns. Most towns in the state also have
universal-band radios that allow police and emergency management
directors to communicate with other towns during a storm.
DeVico said that if, by Thursday, weather forecasts show that Hurricane
Earl is headed for Connecticut, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
will position critical supplies like water, medical equipment and tarps
at strategic locations throughout the state.
With fresh memories of destructive spring floods, the coastal town of
Stonington is making preparations for Hurricane Earl.
First Selectman Ed Haberek said Stonington is in "96-hour preparation
mode" and has already begun speaking with public works officials to be
pre-emptive. Haberek said he will be part of a conference call with the
governor's office tomorrow to discuss strategies for the storm.
Hurricane Danielle becomes Category 4 storm
CT POST
The Associated Press
Published: 06:38 a.m., Friday, August 27, 201
MIAMI ---- Hurricane Danielle became a Category 4 storm early Friday
far out over the Atlantic as it headed in Bermuda's direction and
threatened to bring dangerous rip currents to the U.S. East Coast.
Danielle's maximum sustained winds increased to near 135 mph (215 kph)
with some additional strengthening possible.
Danielle was located early Friday about 545 miles (875 kilometers)
southeast of Bermuda and moving north-northwest near 12 mph (19 kph).
The hurricane is forecast to pass well east of Bermuda on Saturday
night, and then make a turn to the north, missing North America. But
large waves and dangerous surf conditions were expected in Bermuda over
the next few days, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
Swells from Danielle would also begin arriving on the East Coast of the
U.S. on Saturday and were likely to cause dangerous rip currents
through the weekend.
Also in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Earl was moving west with maximum
sustained winds near 45 mph (75 kph). Forecasters said Earl could
become by Saturday night.
And in the Pacific, Hurricane Frank had weakened slightly off Mexico's
coast. Further weakening was expected over the next couple days as the
hurricane moved over cooler waters.
Atlantic storm Danielle to
become hurricane
YAHOO
23 August 2010
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Danielle in the central Atlantic
Ocean was expected to strengthen into a hurricane in the next 24 hours
as it moved west-northwest toward Bermuda, the U.S. National Hurricane
Center said in an early Monday advisory.
Danielle, the fourth named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season,
was located about 850 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands with winds
of about 60 miles per hour.
All of the computer weather models showed the system heading northwest
toward Bermuda and not toward Florida or the key oil and gas producing
areas in the Gulf of Mexico.
Gulf
Coast: Another Katrina? How does
unknown impact of Gulf oil slick measure up?
Norwalk HOUR
By STACEY PLAISANCE and BECKY BOHRER, Associated Press (Katrina, 2005)
With a historic evacuation of 1.9 million people from the Louisiana
coast complete, gun-toting police and National Guardsmen stood watch as
rain started to fall on this city's empty streets Sunday night -- and
even presidential politics stood still while the nation waited to see
if Hurricane Gustav would be another Katrina.
The storm was set to crash ashore midday Monday with frightful force,
testing the three years of planning and rebuilding that followed
Katrina's devastating blow to the Gulf Coast.
Painfully aware of the failings that led to that horrific suffering and
more than 1,600 deaths, this time officials moved beyond merely
insisting tourists and residents leave south Louisiana. They threatened
arrest, loaded thousands onto buses and warned that anyone who remained
behind would not be rescued.
"Looters will go directly to jail. You will not get a pass this time,"
Mayor Ray Nagin said. "You will not have a temporary stay in the city.
You will go directly to the Big House."
Col. Mike Edmondson, state police commander, said he believed that 90
percent of the population had fled the Louisiana coast. The exodus of
1.9 million people is the largest evacuation in state history, and
thousands more had left from Mississippi, Alabama and flood-prone
southeast Texas.
Late Sunday, Gov. Bobby Jindal issued one last plea to the roughly
100,000 people still left on the coast: "If you've not evacuated,
please do so. There are still a few hours left."
Louisiana and Mississippi temporarily changed traffic flow so all
highway lanes led away from the coast, and cars were packed
bumper-to-bumper. Stores and restaurants shut down, hotels closed and
windows were boarded up. Some who planned to stay changed their mind at
the last second, not willing to risk the worst.
"I was trying to get situated at home. I was trying to get things so it
would be halfway safe," said 46-year-old painter Jerry Williams, who
showed up at the city's Union Station to catch one of the last buses
out of town. "You're torn. Do you leave it and worry about it, or do
you stay and worry about living?"
Forecasters said Gustav was likely to grow stronger as it marched
toward the coast with top sustained winds of around 115 mph. At 8 p.m.
EDT Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said Gustav was a Category 3
storm centered about 175 miles southeast of the mouth of the
Mississippi River and moving northwest near 17 mph.
Against all warnings, some gambled and decided to face its wrath. On an
otherwise deserted commercial block of downtown Lafayette, about 135
miles west of the city, Tim Schooler removed the awnings from his
photography studio. He thought about evacuating Sunday before deciding
he was better off riding out the storm at home with his wife, Nona.
"There's really no place to go. All the hotels are booked up to Little
Rock and beyond," he said. "We're just hoping for the best."
There were frightening comparisons between Gustav and Katrina, which
flooded 80 percent of New Orleans when the storm surge overtook the
levees. While Gustav isn't as large as Katrina, which was a massive
Category 5 storm at roughly the same place in the Gulf, there was no
doubt the storm posed a major threat to a partially rebuilt New Orleans
and the flood-prone coasts of Louisiana and southeast Texas. The storm
has already killed at least 94 people on its path through the Caribbean.
The storm could bring with it a storm surge of up to 14 feet and
rainfall up to 20 inches wherever it hits. By comparison, Hurricane
Katrina pushed about 25 feet of surge.
Mindful of the potential for disaster, the Republican Party scaled back
its normally jubilant convention -- set to kickoff as Gustav crashed
ashore. President Bush said he would skip the convention all together,
and Sen. John McCain visited Jackson, Miss., on Sunday as his campaign
rewrote the script for the convention to emphasize a commitment to
helping people.
Surge models suggest larger areas of southeast Louisiana, including
parts of the greater New Orleans area, could be flooded by several feet
of water. Gustav appears most likely to overwhelm the levees west of
the city that have for decades been underfunded and neglected and are
years from an update.
The nation's economic attention was focused on Gustav's effect on
refineries and offshore petroleum production rigs. The combination of
prolonged production interruptions, such as occurred when Katrina and
Rita damaged the Gulf infrastructure, could trigger rising prices.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Chevron Corp. decided not to close
its Pascagoula refinery, which processes 330,000 barrels of oil a day.
Billions of dollars were at stake in other wide-ranging economic
sectors, including sugar harvesting, the shipping business and tourism.
The Mississippi Gaming Commission ordered a dozen casinos to close.
The final train out of town left with fewer than 100 people on board,
while the one of the last buses to make the rounds of the city pulled
into Union Station empty. By 7 p.m., police were making their final
rounds. Every officer in the department was on duty, and 1,200 on
street were joined by 1,500 National Guardsmen.
The only sign of life on St. Bernard Avenue -- a four-lane artery
through the partially rebuilt Gentilly neighborhood that flooded during
Katrina -- was a brown and black rooster meandering along the street.
"When the 911 calls start coming in, we'll know how many people are
left in town," said police superintendent Warren Riley.
Even as they pressed to complete the evacuation, officials insisted
there would be no repeat of the inept response to Katrina's wrath.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said search and rescue
will be the top priority once Gustav passes -- high-water vehicles,
helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, Coast Guard cutters and a Navy
vessel that is essentially a floating emergency room are posted around
the strike zone.
West of New Orleans in Houma, he wished passengers well as stragglers
boarded buses for Shreveport and Dallas.
"It's going to be hot on some of the buses. It's going to be a long
trip," Chertoff said. "So it's not going to be pleasant, but it's a lot
better than sitting in the Superdome and it's a lot better than sitting
in your house."
Five years ago it was Katrina...
TOWN
CLERK STARTS IT, EVERYBODY ELSE CHIPS IN, AND THE VILLAGE GETS
FURNISHED!
This is where it started...Town Clerk leads the way! Board of
Selectmen get into
the act, and then the Board of Finance balks...wants to do
more...members of both Parties join together to make a significant,
long term pledge to assist a "Sister City." Intergeneratioinal
effort, as well! FLOODING HITS WESTON - FEMA now will accept
applications and also...SBA to the rescue!
Making a bad situation worse
ROB VARNON rvarnon@ctpost.com
Article created: 08/19/2006
04:43:17 AM EDT
Almost a year after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and other
Gulf Coast communities, a Connecticut hygiene specialist is questioning
whether hospitals understand how to plan or recover from a disaster.
Katrina hit New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, and headed inland, striking
communities in Mississippi and Alabama. It caused 1,326 deaths and
displaced more than 700,000 people. While it's unlikely Connecticut
communities would see the same type of flood damage as New Orleans —
where some of the city is below sea level — the Constitution State
could be hit by a hurricane, suffer river flooding or terrorist attacks.
Bill Parks, a senior project manager for Stamford-based RTK
Environmental Group and a hygienist, spent four months in New Orleans
helping to clean up hospitals after the storm. In many cases, he said,
the hospitals stored chemicals, dead bodies and medical waste in places
that were easily flooded. This spread bacteria and other contaminants
throughout the building, making the cleanup more difficult.
Parks also found many New Orleans hospitals stored engineering records
and duplicate keys in basements, which also slowed recovery efforts. In
one case, crews had to wait four days to get inside to assess one
hospital because administrators had to track down the original
architect and the company that printed the original plans, Parks said.
Robert Gallo, RTK's director of sales and marketing, said businesses,
states and cities need to think about what the problems during cleanup
were after Katrina when they make their own disaster and recovery
plans. RTK is an environmental remediation consulting firm, helping
clean up brownfields, asbestos and other dangers.
Gallo said there has been a lot of attention on planning for when the
disaster occurs, but the recovery effort is just as important. Even
today, with all this knowledge, Gallo said his firm sees people
cleaning up after smaller disasters like fires and creating larger
problems by not having a plan to deal with asbestos or other materials.
The two RTK employees also said Katrina is an example of the failure of
disaster plans and bureaucracy. For example, during Katrina, Parks
said, it was like the federal, state and city officials weren't even
speaking the same language, and it was unclear who
was in charge.
Ron Bianchi, corporate senior vice president of St. Vincent's Medical
Center in Bridgeport, agreed.
"It was a disaster in more than one sense. It was a disaster of
leadership," Bianchi said, adding he's not sure the same thing wouldn't
happen in Connecticut.
"There's a lot of potential confusion," Bianchi said.
A disaster can cross not just geographical boundaries, but also
administrative ones, creating potential for power struggles.
But perhaps the scariest thing about a major disaster would be people's
expectations of the government.
Bianchi said people may expect the government to swoop in to direct
them what to do, but government bureaucracy doesn't move that fast.
"We'll need more initiative on the part of the individual," he said.
Bianchi said St. Vincent's is prepared to evacuate and has developed
recovery plans. Other hospitals also have plans and are continuing to
refine them, according to the Connecticut Hospital Association.
Leonard Guercia, chief of the operations branch of the Connecticut
Department of Public Health, said the state is already addressing some
of Parks' concerns.
For instance, according to Guercia, Connecticut will have refrigerated
trailers to store bodies if it faces a major disaster. Last year, some
bodies rotted in the streets of New Orleans for days after the storm
passed, creating more health concerns.
The Department of Public Health is also sponsoring a seminar Sept. 21
called "The Role and Responsibility of Local Government & Business
Leaders in Pre-Event Planning & Post-Event Planning."
Gallo and Parks said the planning underway is good, but a major problem
facing the state and the nation is the general populace doesn't know
what the plans are, and aren't participating in drills. That, Parks
said, needs to change.
"DEPARTURE
CEREMONY" May 20th goes well - Lacombe,
Louisiana or bust!
And
it was quite a ceremony, with Channel 12 there, everyone was gracious
but didn't take much time away from the task at hand - loading the
trucks for their trip to Lacombe. Good stuff only loaded onto
truck. HAPPENINGS: a large SUV arrived, loaded to the
gills, from a neighboring synagogue, with a bounty of brand new kitchen
equipment in their new, unopened, boxes...Click here for flyer.
Sister city committee proposes projects
Weston FORUM
by JAN HOWARD
Feb 15, 2006
Weston residents, organizations, and businesses who want to make a
difference in the lives of people in Southeast Louisiana have an
opportunity to do so through 14 projects being suggested by the Weston
Select Committee on the Town-to-Town Partnership.
The committee, appointed by the Board of Selectmen, adopted a mission
statement to partner with a town similar in size and community to
Weston, to facilitate supporting that town’s immediate and short-term
needs for recovery, and to build a mutually beneficial long-term
relationship and partnership.
Weston has “adopted” a sister city, Lacombe, La., located along the
north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in St. Tammany Parish. The community
sustained substantial damage during Hurricane Katrina. It is one of the
poorest communities in St. Tammany Parish, with an average family
income of about $32,000 a year. An estimated 90% of the elementary
school students qualify for free lunches.
Committee members David Muller and Martin Strasmore recently traveled
to Lacombe, where they saw first-hand the devastation there. They met
with town officials, fire personnel, church leaders, school principals,
and directors of the library, the health and human services department,
and the recreation department. The committee held its first
public presentation of projects organized to date on Feb. 11 in the
parish hall at Norfield Church. Proposed projects focus on both the
long-term and short-term needs of the Lacombe community.
Mr. Muller, chairman of the Town-To-Town Partnership Committee, said
loss of the property tax base as a result of the hurricane necessitated
significant budget cuts in Lacombe and across Louisiana, which led to
drastic cutbacks in equipment repairs, replacement, and purchases.
There is no money to do the things they need to do to rebuild, he said.
The projects the Weston committee seeks to undertake include:
500 Homes
Five hundred families that had no flood insurance and limited help from
FEMA would benefit; 25% of the homes are in the flood zone, and they
are looking to rebuild on land above the flood zone. Weston would fund
transportation of the items to Lacombe.
Items to be collected include:
• Construction
materials: Sheet rock, flooring, trusses and roofing materials. As
funding is received, it will be spent on materials.
• Furniture and large appliances: Bedroom
furniture, beds and bedding for 1,000 or more, dining room tables,
washers and dryers, stoves and microwaves are needed within the next
two to three months.
• Clothing and basic needs: Clothing and shoes
for all ages, telephones, pots and pans, dishes, cleaning supplies,
TVs, and all basic needs for a house.
Lacombe Athletic Equipment
Sports equipment, for ages five to 14, to be collected includes:
• Football:
Footballs, 30 helmets, and shoulder pads. Equipment needed by September.
• Baseball: 10 youth catchers packages, 15
Babe Ruth certified balls, 30 baseball/softball helmets, 10 baseball
catchers mitts, five softball catchers mitts, and white
baseball/softball pants. Equipment needed by April.
Project Maintenance
The hurricane caused the loss of the town’s maintenance facility as
well as most of the tools and equipment. The project would benefit the
entire community. Work could begin immediately and be complete within
one to one and a half years. Specific needs include:
• A 30- by
40-foot metal building
• Concrete foundation
• Concrete drive leading to building (60 to 80
feet)
• Vehicle lift (9,000-pound capability)
• Tools
Monteleone Junior High School
Supplies Project: Copier paper, file folders, ink pens, overhead
markers, copier transparencies, dry erase markers, AAA batteries, HP
printer ink. Total estimated cost: $613.
Technology Project: Four Dell OptiPlexGX280, six HP Deskjet 3915, four
VCR-DVD players, four AverVision 300i Portable Document Cameras, four
Infocus x2 Digital projector 1500. Total estimated cost: $10,108.
Exploring the Art and Dance of
Southeastern Louisiana
A local artist is employed to share the knowledge and skills regarding
the history and artistic techniques of artists of Southeastern
Louisiana. Art supplies for students are needed, as well as materials
to display the completed student work in an art show.
The program would also employ a local performer to share the art of
Cajun dance with students.
Based on past grants, which are no longer available, estimated cost is
approximately $3,000.
Bringing the Art and Dance of
Southeastern Louisiana to Weston
Two options: Bringing people and materials from Lacombe’s program to
Weston, or sending a video and art team to Lacombe to record and bring
back what they see and learn. The value is for the Weston community,
though it might help raise money for other Lacombe projects, and it
would strengthen ties between Weston and Lacombe.
Bayou Lacombe Middle School
Supplies Project: 10 TI-15 Explorer calculators, printer ink
cartridges. Total estimated cost: $712. These are needed as soon as
possible.
Reading Database Project: A subscription to Online Accelerated Reader
Database, reading software program to motivate students to read.
Estimated cost: $219.
Technology Project: Three Dell Intel P4 521, HP Laptop NC6120, three HP
Color Laser Jet 3550n, 13 ELMO HV-110XG Visual Presenter, eight
port hubs for ethernet. Total estimated cost: $16,100.
Chahta-Ima Elementary School
Supplies Project: HP print cartridges for 26 computers, 25 bulbs for
Dell 2200 MP Projectors. Total estimated cost: $9,000.
Technology Project: Four Dell 2300 MP projectors, four projector
screens, seven 27-inch television/DVD/VHS, 10 HP Compaq Sepcs Dc 7600,
eight HP Deskjet Printers 5650, four Sony Cybershot DSC-P72 digital
cameras, four ELMO HV-5100XG visual presenters. Total estimated cost:
$28,195.
For information and the name of the contact person for each project,
call Mr. Muller at 226-6588.
Mr. Muller said monetary donations made out to the Town of Weston, with
the notation for Town- to-Town Partnership, are tax deductible.
However, there is no clear answer as yet on whether donations of
furnishings and other goods are deductible. He said people
coordinating collections through schools and other organizations should
call the contact person for that project to avoid any conflicts.
There is also an opportunity for hands-on work, Mr. Muller said,
explaining they might be able to send teams to Lacombe to help with
construction projects. Mr. Strasmore said the committee also
needs the expertise of a Web designer to create a Web site.
In addition to Mr. Muller and Mr. Strasmore, committee members include
Rev. Bernard Wilson, Michael Carter, Charlene Chiang-Hillman, Dr. Lynne
Pierson, and Dawn Egan.
Select Committee for Sister City
(re: Hurricane Katrina)
formed by Board of Selectmen - members appointed October 6, 2005.
In
Mississippi, The Post-Katrina Recovery Is Stagnant; After three
months little has changed in many devastated towns
By MICHAEL POWELL & THE WASHINGTON POST
Published on 11/26/2005
Pass Christian, Miss.— Three months ago, Katrina all but scoured this
old beach town of 8,000 off the face of the Earth. To walk its streets
today is to see acres of wreckage almost as untouched as the day the
hurricane passed.
No new houses are framed out. No lots cleared. There is just
devastation and a lingering stench and a tent city in which hundreds of
residents huddle against the first chill of winter and wonder where
they'll find the money to rebuild their lives.
Billy McDonald, the white-haired mayor whose house was reduced to a
concrete slab by 55-foot-high waves, works out of a trailer. He doesn't
expect the word “recovery” to roll off his lips for many months.
“Lots of folks don't have flood insurance; lots of folks don't have
jobs; lots of folks don't have hope,” McDonald said. “We're a hurting
place.”
This is the other land laid low by Katrina's fury. Like New Orleans to
the west, hundreds of square miles of Mississippi coastland look little
better than they did in early September, and many people here harbor
anger that the federal government has fallen short and that the
nation's attention has turned away. At least 200,000 Mississippians
remain displaced, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is short
at least 13,000 trailers to house them.
Fifty thousand homeowners lack federal flood insurance and cannot
rebuild. The casinos, which employed 17,000 people, won't begin to
reopen until next year, and the unemployment rate has quadrupled, now
topping 23 percent in the coastal counties.
Half a dozen towns, Pass Christian among them, are borrowing millions
of dollars to pay bills, and some officials are talking about
surrendering charters and becoming wards of the state.
“FEMA continues to be able to mess up a one-car funeral — we don't
begin to have enough money for major reconstruction,” said Rep. Gene
Taylor (D), who lost his own home in Bay St. Louis. “We're going to
have a lot of defaults and bankruptcies.
“The federal response, from highways to housing to trailers, is
completely unacceptable.”
Developers and casino companies and local politicians have begun to map
out a rebuilding plan, but that stirs anxiety, too. In this poorest
state in the nation, where nearly 22 percent of residents live in
poverty and 40,000 homes lack adequate plumbing, thousands of
Mississippians could find themselves unable to afford to return to the
land of their birth.
How about tornado attraction?
Last Updated: Tuesday, 29 November
2005, 13:06 GMT
Trailer towns'
uncertain future
By Matthew Davis, BBC News in Baker, Louisiana
Some 70,000 people in Louisiana and Mississippi are now living in
trailer parks, three months after Hurricane Katrina forced them to
abandon their homes. The cheap, makeshift abodes are
synonymous with poverty in the US. Yet for many storm victims
they are the only option for the next 18 months at least, while the
slow process of rebuilding winds on. For some they are a new beginning,
a step up from sharing a motel room.
But there are fears for the long-term social consequences of the wave
of construction that has seen "trailer towns" springing up all along
the Gulf Coast. The BBC visited one such site in Baker,
Louisiana, a small town just north of Baton Rouge and about 90 miles
from New Orleans. Just outside the town limits, some 60 acres of
treeless scrubland owned by the Louisiana State Corrections Department
has been turned into a 600-trailer park, housing more than 1,600
people.
Casterry Reddick was one of the first people to move to the park after
she was evacuated from Pointe a La Hache on the east bank of the
Mississippi River.
"It is better than a shelter at least. It's me and my kids. At the
river centre I was with 1,000 other people," she said. The
mother-of-two is working as a security guard, patrolling the trailers
and is making plans to stay. Her children are in a local school.
"Right now I am working, I am kinda confused, I don't know where to
go," she says.
"Once I get paid off [by the Federal Emergency Management Agency] I
will decide from there - but I kinda like it out here, not in Baker -
but Baton Rouge. Yeah I would buy a house in Baton Rouge."
'Pleasure resort'
Yet some at the park find it hard to escape a sense of being in limbo.
Annie Ford is 97, a New Orleans resident since 1934. She now lives in a
trailer with her cousin and her son. She seems amazingly resilient to
the upheaval, but is missing home.
"I like it is nice, the people are nice. But when I leave here I want
to go back to New Orleans.
"I don't have nobody to take me back there - but if I ever do go I will
be going back to New Orleans, if I live to see it." Glen Morgan
is helping out at the camp's tented nursery, where children are playing
with toys and games donated by well-wishers. He says some see the
site as a "pleasure resort" because evacuees pay no rent to Fema and
get all their water, electricity and gas for free.
But there is little to do he says, and for those waiting for a payout
and to move on, it feels like a "bureaucratic nightmare".
"We really appreciate what people have done for us," Mr Morgan says.
"But there are a lot of issues still outstanding. We just need someone
in authority to come down and listen to people."
Several of the trailer parks built in Florida after four major
hurricanes in 2004 experienced widespread lawlessness. New
Orleans was infamous for its violent gangs and there were fears that
history might repeat itself.
Yet Fema has acted to stop that happening. The trailer parks have their
own security and Baker's is policed by the local sheriff's department.
Residents must sign a good- conduct agreement and abide by Fema rules.
Baker's police force says there has been a small increase in
shoplifting and petty crime, but nothing serious.
The town's mayor, Harold Rideau, says Baker has "opened its arms" to
evacuees, but he is more concerned at the mounting costs of supporting
the camp - and cleaning up after the hurricanes - which he puts at more
than $800,000 and counting.
"It is a tremendous financial burden because we not only had to do the
clean up, but also all the extra infrastructure, additional police
protection - you're looking at additional firemen, health services and
also public works," he told the BBC.
He thinks half of people in the park will ultimately stay - a big
challenge for a small town.
In surveys since Katrina, about 50% of the 500,000 people evacuated
from the affected area into other states have also indicated an
unwillingness to return.
Some say such shifting demographics will herald political changes.
Experts in urban development
warn that those planning for the ongoing housing needs of hundreds of
thousands must be careful to not create communities that are so dense
and sterile that no one wants to live in them.
Ruth Steiner, an associate professor at the Department of Urban and
Regional Planning at the University of Florida, has described the
post-Katrina construction as "a milestone of urban planning" without
precedent in US history.
She says the key is in striking a balance between making somewhere
comfortable for people, but not so comfortable as to stop them wanting
to leave.
Fema - which has already provided more than $4.4bn to 1.4 million
families affected by the Gulf Coast hurricanes - sees trailer parks as
a low-cost solution to the current housing problem.
But only time will measure the social costs - or rewards - they will
bring to the people that live in them, and the communities that house
them.
Senate Panel
Says FEMA Is Beyond Repair
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
2:20 PM EDT, April 27, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Hurricane Katrina turned FEMA into a "symbol of a
bumbling bureaucracy" so far beyond repair that it should be scrapped,
senators said Thursday. They called for creation of a new disaster
relief agency as the next storm season looms on the horizon.
The push to replace the beleaguered agency was the top recommendation
of a hefty Senate inquiry that concluded that top officials from New
Orleans to Washington failed to adequately prepare for and respond to
the deadly storm, despite weather forecasts predicting its path through
the Gulf Coast.
"The first obligation of government is to protect our people," said
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair of the Senate Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs investigation. "In Katrina, we failed at all
levels of government to meet that fundamental obligation."
She added: "We must learn from the lessons of Katrina so that next time
disaster strikes, whether it's a storm that was imminent and predicted
for a long time, or a terror attack that takes us by surprise,
government responds far more effectively."
The bipartisan report's executive summary gives President Bush a mixed
review for his performance. It credits him for declaring an emergency
before the hurricane's landfall, but faults him for waiting until two
days after it hit to return to Washington and convene top officials to
coordinate the federal response.
"The White House shares responsibility for the inadequate pre-landfall
preparations," the summary says.
The inquiry's final report, given to lawmakers Thursday, faulted New
Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco for failing
to protect sick and elderly people and others who could not evacuate
the city on their own. It also concluded that Homeland Security
Secretary Michael Chertoff and Michael Brown, who then headed the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, either did not understand federal
response plans or refused to follow them.
But the panel's top Democrat, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut,
heaped much of the blame on Bush and the White House, which he said
"were not sufficiently engaged when they should have been initiating an
aggressive response."
Even after the storm's Aug. 29 landfall, the White House "still seemed
detached until two days later," said Lieberman, who faces a primary
re-election challenge this year.
The bipartisan panel issued 86 recommendations for change that, taken
together, indicate the United States is still woefully unprepared for a
storm of Katrina's scope with the start of the hurricane season little
more than a month away.
The probe follows similar inquiries by the House and White House and
comes in an election year in which Democrats have seized on Katrina to
attack the Bush administration. Bush was visiting Louisiana and
Mississippi -- which bore the brunt of Katrina's wrath -- on Thursday.
Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. The
storm killed more than 1,300 people in Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama, left hundreds of thousands of homeless and caused tens of
billions of dollars in damage.
The recommendations conclude FEMA is crippled beyond repair by years of
poor leadership and inadequate funding and call for a new agency -- the
National Preparedness and Response Authority -- to plan and carry out
relief missions for domestic disasters.
Unlike now, the authority would communicate directly with the president
during major crises, and any dramatic cuts to budget or staffing levels
would have to be approved by Congress. But it would remain within the
Homeland Security Department and would continue receiving resources
from the department.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said FEMA needs to be stripped out of
the larger department and restored to an independent Cabinet-level
agency. "That's how it was done in the past and it worked as we hoped,"
said Lautenberg, a member of the Senate panel.
The proposal also drew disdain from Homeland Security and its critics,
both sides questioning the need for another bureaucratic shuffling that
they said wouldn't accomplish much.
"It's time to stop playing around with the organizational charts and to
start focusing on government, at all levels, that are preparing for
this storm season," Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said.
Brown, who resigned under fire after Katrina, said the new agency would
basically have the same mission FEMA had a year ago before its disaster
planning responsibilities were taken away to focus solely on responding
to calls for help.
"It sounds like they're just re-creating the wheel and making it look
like they're calling for change," Brown said.
The House report, issued in February, similarly criticized Bush,
Chertoff and Brown for moving too slowly to trigger federal relief. The
White House report, which came a week later, took a softer tone and
singled out Homeland Security for most of the breakdowns.
F L O O D - n e w t
o o l s a v a i l a b l e h
e r e
FROM THE SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION:
Flooding assistance link here.
Nasa has used satellite images from 1 to 9 August to show
the intensity of rainfall compared to average rates for the same period
in previous years. The darker blue shows where rain was much more
intense than usual; brown indicates less intense rainfall. Some regions
have had as much as 24 millimetres of rain per day above normal.
In Khanpur, in Pakistan's Sindh district, for example, the average
rainfall is 17.4mm for the whole month of August. So far, 255mm has
fallen in 12 days.
The annual monsoon season, typically from June to September, is caused
by the difference in temperature between the land and the sea.
As the Tibetan plateau warms up, heated air rises, drawing in moist air
from the sea to replace it. This also warms, rises and the water
condenses into rain. The BBC Weather Centre says a kink in the
jet stream of fast-moving air in the upper atmosphere has exacerbated
conditions this year. More spiralling air in the upper atmosphere sucks
in more moist air, causing larger clouds and more intense rainfall.
Death toll from Pakistan
floods rises to
1,100
Washington Times
By Riaz Khan, Associated Press
Updated: 8:41 a.m. on Sunday, August 1, 2010
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — The death toll from massive floods in
northwestern Pakistan rose to 1,100 Sunday as rescue workers struggled
to save more than 27,000 people still trapped by the raging water.
The rescue effort was aided by a slackening of the monsoon rains that
have caused the worst flooding in decades in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa
province. But as flood waters started to recede, authorities began to
understand the full scale of the disaster.
"Aerial monitoring is being conducted, and it has shown that whole
villages have washed away, animals have drowned, and grain storages
have washed away," said Latifur Rehman, spokesman for the Provincial
Disaster Management Authority. "The destruction is massive..."
Death
toll in Pakistani floods surges
past 800
YAHOO
By NABEEL YUSUF and RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer
31 July 2010
NOWSHERA, Pakistan – The death toll in the massive flooding in Pakistan
surged past 800 as floodwaters receded Saturday in the hard-hit
northwest, an official said. The damage to roads, bridges and
communications networks hindered rescuers, while the threat of disease
loomed as some evacuees arrived in camps with fever, diarrhea and skin
problems.
Even for a country used to tragedy — especially deadly suicide attacks
by Taliban militants — the scale of this past week's flooding has been
shocking. Monsoon rains come every year, but rarely with such fury. The
devastation came in the wake of the worst-ever plane crash in Pakistan,
which killed 152 people in Islamabad on Wednesday.
In neighboring eastern Afghanistan, floods killed 64 people and injured
61 others in the past week, while destroying hundreds of homes and huge
stretches of farmland, according to Matin Edrak, director of the Afghan
government's disaster department.
As rivers swelled in Pakistan's northwest, people sought ever-shrinking
high ground or grasped for trees and fences to avoid getting swept
away. Buildings simply crumbled into the raging river in Kalam, a town
in the northern part of the Swat Valley, Geo TV showed Saturday.
Reports coming in from districts around the northwest, where such
flooding has not been seen since 1929, showed at least 800 people had
died, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the region's information minister.
The U.N. estimated that some 1 million people nationwide were affected
by the disaster, though it didn't specify exactly what that meant.
Floodwaters were receding in the region, and many people remain
missing, Hussain said.
Over 30,000 Pakistani army troops engaged in rescue and relief work had
evacuated 19,000 trapped people by Saturday night, said army spokesman
Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas.
"The level of devastation is so widespread, so large," he said. "It is
quite possible that in many areas there is damage, deaths, which may
not have been reported."
In the Nowshera area, scores of men, women and children sat on roofs in
hopes of air or boat rescues. Many had little more than the clothes on
their backs.
"There are very bad conditions," said Amjad Ali, a rescue worker in the
area. "They have no water, no food."
A doctor treating evacuees at a small relief camp in Nowshera said some
had diarrhea and others had marks appearing on their skin, causing
itching. Children and the elderly seemed to have the most problems,
Mehmood Jaa said.
"Due to the floodwater, they now have pain in their bodies and they are
suffering from fever and cough," Jaa told The Associated Press.
In the town Charsadda, Nabi Gul, who estimated he was around 70, looked
at a pile of rubble where his house once stood.
"I built this house with my life's earnings and hard work, and the
river has washed it away," he said in a trembling voice. "Now I wonder,
will I be able to rebuild it? And in this time, when there are such
great price hikes?"
Another resident of Charsadda complained of what he considered a
lackluster government response.
"Nobody has offered us for help. We have got no help," said Awal Sher,
60. "Everything is destroyed. Inside, outside — everything is broken."
In eastern Afghanistan, Edrak said floods destroyed about 800 homes and
hundreds of acres (hectares) of farm land, damaged hydropower dams and
partially destroyed more than 500 other houses. Most of the flooding
was in eight provinces, including Kabul, he said.
Rescuers were using army helicopters, heavy trucks and boats to try to
reach flood-hit areas. Thousands of homes and roads were destroyed, and
at least 45 bridges across the northwest were damaged, the U.N. said.
The American Embassy in Islamabad announced the United States would be
providing 12 prefabricated steel bridges to temporarily replace some of
the spans damaged by the water. It also is sending rescue boats, water
filtration units and some 50,000 meals to be distributed to those in
stricken areas, the embassy said in a statement.
Communications networks were sketchy, and the rescue effort was further
hampered by the washed-out roads and bridges, said Lutfur Rehman, a
government official in the northwest.
"Our priority is to transport flood-affected people to safer places. We
are carrying out this rescue operation despite limited resources," he
said.
Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, the head of the Pakistan Meteorological
Department, said that no more rain was expected in the next few days
for the northwest. But Punjab province in the east, Sindh province in
the south, and Pakistan's side of the disputed Kashmir region all could
expect a lashing over the next three or four days, he said.
Flooding has already affected some of those regions, with more than 20
people dying in Kashmir.
Flash Flood in Philippines 26 September 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8276347.stm
Bloated lake haunts North Dakota town again
YAHOO
By JAMES MacPHERSON, Associated Press Writer
March 20, 2010
KATHRYN, N.D. – Almost a year after worried authorities went door to
door warning residents to flee as water carved through a nearby dam,
this tiny North Dakota town is facing the possibility of having to
evacuate again because of flooding.
Fueled by runoff from a winter of heavy snow, water is swiftly rising
behind the Clausen Springs Dam. And Kathryn's 55 citizens are
frustrated that nothing has been done to repair or replace the damaged
dam that threatens to break and inundate this blink-and-you-miss-it
community, about 60 miles southwest of the state's biggest city of
Fargo.
"We're just an itty-bitty town and we don't carry any clout," Mayor
Dave Majerus said. "If that dam was above Fargo, there would be some
concern and definitely something would get done."
Flood worries extend far beyond Fargo and other North Dakota and
Minnesota communities along the north-flowing Red River. Heavy, wet
snow has caused widespread flooding for other parts of North Dakota,
and several communities such as Linton, Lisbon, LaMoure and Jamestown
are being fortified with temporary levees and sandbags to beat back the
rising water. In Minto, about 16 homes in the community of 300 are
threatened by floodwaters, and residents are frantically using sump
pumps to stay dry.
Few of those places, though, are as worried as Kathryn.
Stray cats are sometimes more likely to be seen than residents in the
town, which boasts little more than a bar, a post office and a church.
Though the community has seen better times it's still no less important
than any other, Majerus said.
The problem with the dam near Kathryn is that it was built before state
safety standards were in place. The Clausen Springs Dam, which is
tucked within rare wooded rolling hills in the area, is fed by a creek
that collects runoff from 100 square miles of mostly flat farmland in
southeast North Dakota.
The earthen dam is about 50 feet high and about 700 feet long and holds
back a lake about the size of 50 football fields. It was built in 1967
for fishing and recreation — not for flood control, said Harlan Opdahl,
a Barnes County commissioner.
Kathryn residents were evacuated for a few days last April after
flooding began eroding the dam's spillway a few miles from town. Trucks
hauled in clay and rocks to fortify the earthen spillway and North
Dakota National Guard soldiers in helicopters dropped more than 100
one-ton sandbags to help shore it up.
The little town was spared extensive flood damage but it led some to
wonder whether it was worth spending big money protect it. State and
local governments eventually raised $3 million "by pulling a few
strings" to replace the dam but the work may come too late, the mayor
said.
"We got the money but all that's been done is talk," Majerus said. "I
guess that's the way bureaucracy works."
State officials say it took time to scrape together money for work and
no one believed the area would be hit with flooding two consecutive
years. The town, founded in 1900, never had a flood threat until last
year.
"It's rare to have flooding there one year, let alone back to back,"
said Sando, of the North Dakota Water Commission. "There was no way of
predicting it could happen again."
No one appears more frustrated than Shirley Sivertson, 74, who along
with her husband, Sanford, 81, live on the edge of town. Their home is
the first in the path of the water if the dam breaks. Last year, the
couple evacuated in just a few minutes and returned to the home a few
days later to find water in their basement.
Shirley Sivertson said the couple doesn't want to have to flee again
this year.
"We shouldn't have to be worrying about all this business with the
dam," she said. "My husband has a bad heart, two stents, a balloon and
a pacemaker — we don't need to be moving nothing."
"This whole town is sitting on pins and needles," she said. "If the
governor was standing in front of me right now, I'd tell him: 'Get with
it man! We're just a town of 55 people but we're just as dang gone
important as anybody else.'"
A new dam designed to handle major flooding is expected to be built
later this year, Sando said. Jon Kelsch, the state Water Commission's
construction chief, said it was a challenge to redesign the dam with
only $3 million. Initial designs were overbuilt and too expensive, but
a no-frills design that will do the job has finally been crafted, he
said.
Opdahl has advocated breaching the dam by cutting a channel through it
for a controlled release of water until a permanent fix can be made.
But sportsmen in the area balked, he said.
"I think we should have siphoned it off until we figured out a plan
then we wouldn't be in this situation," Opdahl said. "We can always
fill it back up and stock it with fish."
Opdahl and others believe that a valve on an outflow pipe used to drain
the dam has been tampered with in the past to keep the lake level high
for better angling. The drain is now completely open and is being
monitored daily, Opdahl said.
That doesn't make residents worry less, or diminish frustration that
their neighbors in Fargo and Moorhead seem to get so much more help
than they do.
"They've been worrying about Fargo and Minnesota instead of fooling
with us," Opdahl said.
Sandbags
delivered ahead of expected Fargo flood
YAHOO
By DAVE KOLPACK, Associated Press Writer
16 March 2010
FARGO, N.D. – Marc Shannon says the prospect of using a sandbag wall to
protect his Fargo home from the rising Red River doesn't seem so
alarming. Not after last year, when the city dealt with record flooding
and Shannon had to maneuver around a 10-foot-high clay dike that cut
his house off from the outside world.
"We're all feeling pretty calm compared to last year," Shannon said
Monday, while preparing to melt ice in his backyard to make room for a
sandbag dike. "Without that clay dike in the streets this year, this is
going to be a walk in the park."
Police escorted convoys of flatbed trucks carrying piles of sandbags
into neighborhoods Monday as the cities of Fargo in eastern North
Dakota and neighboring Moorhead, Minn., went into flood-fighting mode.
The Red River is expected to crest Saturday about 20 feet above the
flood stage, meaning the rising waters flowing over the river's banks
could threaten nearby houses, roads and parks.
Last year, about 100 homes in the area were damaged and thousands of
people were evacuated after the Red River rose above the flood stage
for a record 61 days and crested twice. Officials say they are better
prepared this year for flooding thanks to early stockpiling of sandbags
and the building of stronger levees across the region.
"This year, the dike we'll have to build will be 3 feet less than last
year," Shannon said. "It's manageable."
Miles of clay levees, more than 1 million sandbags and portable wall
systems will be used to help protect an area of about 200,000 people in
Cass County, N.D., and Clay County, Minn. Clay County Sheriff Bill
Bergquist said a handful of residents outside the city left their
houses mainly because they don't want to be stranded by overland
flooding.
"Everybody has to understand that this is for real," Fargo Mayor Dennis
Walaker said after a briefing with city and county officials.
In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Pawlenty declared a state of emergency Monday in
28 counties affected by potential flooding across western, southern,
central and eastern parts of the state. The order activated the
National Guard to help with flood preparations and provide emergency
relief.
Fargo resident Karry Hoganson was chopping down an evergreen tree in
his neighbor's backyard to help make room for a sandbag dike. When he
bought his house in 2002, Hoganson said historical figures showed he
would be sandbagging once every 10 years. But it's been more like every
other year, he said.
"I chose to live on the river. I'm not looking for sympathy," he said.
"I bought it for the view. I love it here."
Palates of sandbags lined streets and cul-de-sacs in several
neighborhoods of higher-end homes along the river in south Fargo. Dan
Sholy, who was hired to help unload the trucks, said some people have
been clearing out their backyards to make room for the sandbags, which
weigh about 20 pounds each.
Over the next few days, residents will stack the sandbags — in
Hoganson's neighborhood the dike will be 9 feet wide and 3 feet high —
in an attempt to keep the river's waters away from their homes.
"Right now they're are getting everything all flagged and marked for
the dikes," Sholy said. "We'll have volunteers coming in tomorrow so
there's going to be lot of action here."
Fargo
resisted FEMA recommendation to evacuate
National Review - AP
By DAVE KOLPACK and FREDERIC J. FROMMER
April 2, 2009
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — With floodwaters rising around them, Fargo officials
and the Federal Emergency Management Agency faced an agonizing
decision: Should they order a mandatory evacuation of the entire city?
FEMA thought the best course of action was to evacuate and not leave
anything to chance. Fargo officials disagreed, saying they knew what it
would take to hold back the Red River. The conversation turned heated
at times, and Fargo ultimately won. Now that the Red River is
receding and leaving only relatively minor damage, that decision looks
smart. The city began returning to normal Wednesday as people went back
to work, stores reopened and the river dipped to only slightly above 37
feet.
At the height of the flood, Fargo's levees held back most of the
deluge, and allowing residents to stay enabled them to fill sandbags,
patrol for dike leaks and monitor pumps to keep water out of homes.
But the episode demonstrates the kind of clash that can unfold between
federal and local governments in an era when FEMA is intent on avoiding
another failure of Hurricane Katrina proportions. It was also perhaps
an inevitable result of federal bureaucrats coming head-to-head with
the pride of a local community. In this case, Fargo stood up to
the government and won, showing a sturdy resolve that was apparent
throughout the flood-fighting effort.
Fargo leaders including Mayor Dennis Walaker repeatedly vowed to beat
back the river, to "go down swinging" as they put it. City Commissioner
Tim Mahoney even ended a briefing Monday by saying, "The spirit of
Fargo: Evacuation is not an option."
FEMA's response was more measured, warning of an epic disaster if the
Red River burst past the levees and swamped the city of nearly 100,000
people. The agency could point to Grand Forks, 70 miles to the
north, where the same river ravaged much of the community 12 years ago.
In that case, most of the 60,000 residents were forced to flee after
floodwaters covered the city and a fire destroyed several buildings in
the heart of downtown. Grand Forks waged a furious sandbagging
battle similar to Fargo's effort, but it was not enough. The river
swiftly surged past crest projections, giving the city little time to
prepare.
In Fargo, volunteers built levees to contain the river provided it did
not rise above 43 feet. The water topped out at nearly 41 feet.
Fargo officials said they had a better levee system in place than Grand
Forks, making the comparison irrelevant.
"You can't place a price on human life, and if you're going to err in
any way, it's got to be" to save lives, said Mike Hall, FEMA's
coordinating officer on the ground in North Dakota. "If it had gone to
43 feet, that's ... over the top of the levees. How do you protect for
that? That's the sort of healthy discussion you have to have."
The fact that Fargo residents were even around to witness the flooding
was the result of a meeting Friday in Fargo among city, state and
federal officials. Mahoney, the city commissioner, described the
discussion as "heated," but said he and the mayor made an impassioned
argument to dissuade the government on the evacuation issue.
"We had some losses we could take. We knew that," he said. "We're
organized. We know what we're doing. We know our contingencies."
Walaker said the city faced "an awful lot of pressure" to evacuate.
Evacuations are expensive, logistically difficult and endlessly
second-guessed. If a city stays and fights, and the dikes fail, blame
will come as fast as the rushing water. If a city evacuates and the
dikes hold, angry residents may be reluctant to leave next time.
"He certainly knew he was on the hot seat either way," Hall said. "If
it had been 43 feet and people would have drowned, then they'd be all
after him for that. ... He felt what they had in place could meet the
challenge.
Ben Smilowitz is in charge of a group called the Disaster
Accountability Project that was formed in 2007 to monitor
disaster-relief efforts by FEMA in the aftermath of Katrina. He said
the decision to evacuate is ultimately up to the local government, and
that "a decision overruling a local government is rare. ... It would
come from much higher in the food chain than FEMA."
He said FEMA is there to provide guidance and supplies for
disaster-stricken communities regardless of how strongly federal
authorities disagree with local governments.
"The last thing FEMA wants to do is play political games with
reimbursement dollars, because that could discourage local governments
from making the best decisions out of worry they won't get reimbursed,"
Smilowitz said.
Acting FEMA Administrator Nancy Ward, who came to Fargo to witness the
threat, declined requests for an interview.
In a written response to questions from The Associated Press, FEMA
spokesman Terry Monrad said the agency did discuss evacuation with
state and local officials, but "the decision to evacuate any
municipality is ultimately made by local officials."
In the end, Fargo leaders and FEMA officials emerged from the dispute
on good terms. Walaker praised the efforts of FEMA and every other
agency, and the government provided important on-the-ground assistance.
Hall said he was not worried that Fargo's decision might embolden local
officials to disregard FEMA in future disasters. He said Fargo
officials put a lot of time and thought into their decisions.
Associated Press Writer Elizabeth
Dunbar contributed to this report.
Red River Goes Below Flood Stage in
Fargo
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:39 p.m. ET
May 20, 2009
FARGO, N.D. (AP) -- It's been a long time dropping.
The Red River, which rose above its 18-foot flood stage in Fargo on
March 20, finally dropped to 17.9 feet at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday after 61
days, the National Weather Service said.
That's a record time for flood stage in the city, the weather service
said. It was expected to fall slowly to 17.5 feet over the next week.
''It's long time, but we made it through to a happy ending,''
hydrologist Mike Lukes said.
Residents of Fargo and neighboring Moorhead, Minn., scrambled to save
their homes, using millions of sandbags to fight off two crests on the
Red River -- the first at a record 40.82 feet and the second at 34 feet.
Flooding caused by heavy rain and snow led to a statewide disaster in
March and April, closing roads across North Dakota and forcing some
residents out of their homes. The flooding was linked to the deaths of
at least three people and thousands of farm and ranch animals.
Forty-one North Dakota counties and three reservations are covered
under a presidential disaster declaration.
The weather service said the 61-day flood in Fargo was seven days
longer than the number of days the Red was above flood stage in the
city in 2006.
Letter to the editor:
Flooding is connected to poor drainage decisions
Published Tuesday, April 21, 2009
It’s no surprise that a lot of people are currently thinking about how
to deal with the problem of flooding. Causes include excess rain and
snow, a random melt and the growing problem of drainage. A growing
problem because it seems that everyone wants water moved off his or her
land quickly, no matter what the downstream effects may be.
In fact, drainage is one of the leading causes of increased runoff in
the Red River Valley since statehood. The Waffle Report produced by the
Energy and Environmental Research Center at the University of North
Dakota this spring concludes that the Red River Valley has lost “about
80 percent of the basin wetlands to agriculture in the 19th and 20th
centuries.”
That same conclusion can be applied to the Devils Lake Basin. We
started with approximately 569,000 acres of wetlands in the upper basin
of the lake. Subtracting the remaining 210,000 wetland acres indicates
that about 350,000 acres of sloughs have been drained. The water that
those wetlands once held now flows quickly into Devils Lake.
How much runoff could result from about 350,000 acres of drained
wetlands? How would it compare to 680,000 acre feet, the amount of
water that Tim Heisler, Ramsey County emergency manager, predicts will
reach the lake this spring?
Predicting a Devils Lake overflow, however, is premature. The lake now
(before runoff) holds about 2,925,000 acre feet. At overflow it would
hold about 5,302,612 acre feet. That means the lake is slightly more
than half full.
Odd, though, isn’t it? No one blames drainers for flooding someone
else’s farmland around the lake and no one is considering using the
Waffle approach to restore wetlands in the upper basin. Until that
happens solutions will be Band-Aid dikes, and drainage problems will
continue to grow until dikes will no longer contain the excess.
Richard Betting
Valley City, N.D.
DOT, patrol detouring traffic on I-29
near Fargo
The Jamestown Sun
Published Friday, March 27, 2009
The North Dakota Department of Transportation and Highway Patrol began
detouring traffic on Interstate 29 in the Fargo area at 2:30 p.m. for
improved flow of traffic and flood preparation.
Southbound I-29 traffic will be detoured to Highway 200A near Hillsboro
at Exit ramp 100. The detour moves traffic on Hwy 200A to N.D. Highway
18 to ND Highway 46 near Leonard back to I-29 east of Kindred.
Northbound I-29 traffic will be detoured to N.D. Highway 46 to N.D.
Highway 32 to N.D. highway 200 near Finley back to I-29 east of
Mayville. For Red River crossing on I-29 motorists should continue
south on I-29 to South Dakota Highway 10 to Minnesota 28.
All travelers are encouraged to monitor road conditions, reduce traffic
speeds as weather conditions occur and use caution while traveling. For
up-to-date road information, call 511 from any type of phone or go to
the Web site: www.511.nd.gov for road and weather conditions.
Fargo Neighborhood Evacuated as Waters Rise
NYTIMES
By MONICA DAVEY
March 28, 2009
FARGO, N.D. — Along the banks of this city, the Red River surpassed its
highest level in history Friday morning, forcing the emergency
evacuation of one neighborhood before dawn and leading city leaders
here, once cheerfully upbeat, to sound far more dire.
“We do not want to give up yet,” Mayor Dennis Walaker of Fargo said
after receiving yet another piece of gruesome news. Forecasters now
believe the Red River will go right on rising, and by Saturday overtake
the record set here more than a century ago by two feet or even more,
much higher than anyone here had earlier believed possible.
“We want to go down swinging — if we go down,” the mayor said, as he
urged his city to summon the energy to build the dikes that protect it
yet another foot higher by Friday night.
“I’m going to be devastated if we lose,” said Mr. Walaker, who had,
only a few days ago, expressed optimism, even certainty, that Fargo, a
city of 90,000 and North Dakota’s most populous, would be fine. Other
bleary-eyed city officials described the mood of the place by Friday
afternoon as “on high alert now.” By Friday morning, some hospitals
here had transferred patients to other facilities miles away, and
nursing homes had sent residents to relatives’ homes on high ground.
Major roads here were closed, to allow trucks carrying more loads of
sandbags to reach levees as fast as possible.
And after about 100 people, including some residents of a nursing home,
in one Fargo neighborhood and a large swath of neighboring Moorhead,
Minn., were forced to evacuate Thursday night, officials on Friday
ordered residents from about 150 more Fargo homes to leave just after 2
a.m. The authorities said they found a leak in a levee near those
homes, and were racing to repair it. Residents, meanwhile, could be
seen trudging out by foot, bearing belongings in bone-cold
temperatures, local news reports said.
In Moorhead, a city of 34,700 just across the Red River, residents of
more than 2,660 homes were asked to evacuate by midday Friday,
officials there said. Water could be seen creeping along some streets
in that city, though the city’s mayor, Mark Voxland, said no dikes had
been overtaken. At city hall and the local courthouse, workers were
carting archives and case files out of basements. And some residents
complained that they could not find additional sandbags, and came
searching for some at the police department.
“I would rather be criticized for erring on the side of safety than the
reverse,” Mr. Voxland said Friday afternoon of the decision to ask
people to leave.
Ryan Sather, a resident, stood in short sleeves as he carted all of the
contents of his house into a moving truck he had backed up to his porch.
“They’ve raised the crest level prediction three separate times, and I
think what we know at this point is that nobody really knows what’s
going to happen,” he said. A few blocks away, neighbors were struggling
to pile up sandbags to create a new levee to slow slushy waters. On Mr.
Sather’s corner, water pooled in the snow near a storm sewer, bubbling
far higher, he said, than it had only hours earlier. “Where’s that
going to be by nightfall?”
While flooding conditions have threatened much of North Dakota and
parts of western Minnesota, and some rural communities are already
under water, all eyes on Friday were on this city and on Moorhead. Some
1,700 members of the National Guard had been called in to add more sand
to the area’s already enormous dikes, but even weather forecasters
seemed at a loss to be sure what might come next.
“This is definitely ground zero right now,“ said Patrick Slattery, a
spokesman for the National Weather Service. “Once you get here, into
predictions above the levels we have ever seen before, you’re taking
about unbroken ground. Even we don’t know for certain what’s going to
happen.“
People here found themselves facing added challenges given the singular
dimensions of this flood. Once the river crests on Saturday, it is
expected to stay at those swelled, highest levels for several days.
Dikes that hold for a few hours may be in trouble in a matter of days,
the authorities here say.
The temperature here, too — 10 degrees on Friday morning with a wind
chill reported at 4 degree below zero — tested the stamina of thousands
of volunteers. It also led some to worry about the condition of the
piled sandbags, items some here described unhappily as behaving more
like “frozen turkeys” or big rocks. Would sandbags slide and give way
on frozen ground? Would frigid sandbags allow water to flow through
rather than holding it back?
The authorities went so far as to set aside 10 percent of the three
million sandbags filled here in the last six days to store in warm
locations — in case they are suddenly needed to fill spots where dikes
fail. Still, some authorities said the dropping temperatures
might
provide relief. Colder temperatures, one Fargo official said, slowed
the flow of the river water and slowed the streams that were feeding
it. Indeed, the official said, the water had risen more slowly in
recent hours than it had a day or two ago.
In Fargo, a city where residents continued to offer applause at public
meetings for their political leaders even as the news grew worse and
worse this week, tempers were clearly tested by late Thursday. Kristy
Fremstad, who owns rental property in Fargo, pleaded with city
officials to add sandbags to the dike near her land.
“We’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting,“ she tearfully told city
commissioners at an emergency meeting, (also attended by Gov. John
Hoeven, Senator Byron L. Dorgan and Representative Earl Pomeroy). “I
need some help.“
Schools and many businesses were closed. And some people in between the
city’s primary dike system and a second set of newly created emergency
dikes were advised to evacuate. Volunteers, now days into their work,
went right on filling sandbags at the Fargodome all through the night.
Across the bulging river, in Moorhead, residents who had been advised
to evacuate found themselves on roads jammed with other cars, (and, in
some cases, still covered in snow). The congested streets led some
here, including Mayor Walaker, to worry about how a broader evacuation
plan, if one were required, would play out here. Adding to the
complications of such a concept, local officials acknowledged, was the
fact that no one could be sure where the dikes might break or what
roads — given rising waters and falling snow — might be passable.
In some rural areas to the south of Fargo and elsewhere, water had
already filled homes. White caps, one law enforcement officer said,
could be seen around what had once been farm fields. Rescues were made
with boats and helicopters, even as other residents, surrounded on all
sides by water, insisted on staying put. Around Bismarck, the
state
capital, flooded neighborhoods sat empty as demolition crews battled
dangerous ice jams on the Missouri with explosives. Water levels had
dropped some there, offering hope.
“Our biggest concern is an ice jam in the river just 10 miles north of
Bismarck, which we’re hoping does not dislodge,“ said Bill Wocken, that
city’s administrator. “An ice jam is kind of like my teenage daughter.
Sometimes there is just no way to predict what they’ll do next.“
In Grand Forks, which was devastated by flooding in 1997, two of the
three bridges leading in and out of town were already closed. But city
officials seemed hopeful that a $409 million Army Corps of Engineers
flood protection project, completed two years ago, would save the city
from the Red River this time.
“We remain cautious, vigilant and watchful,“ said Kevin Dean, a city
spokesman.
TORNADO
A tornado funnel touches down in Riverside, Calif. on Thursday,
May 22, 2008. A wild weather system lashed Southern California on
Thursday with fierce thunderstorms that unleashed mudslides in
wildfire-scarred canyons, spawned at least one tornado and dusted
mountains and even low-lying communities with snow and hail. (AP
Photo/Merri Lynn Casem)
Tornado rips up Colorado town
Manchester Journal-Enquiror
By Catherine Tsai, Associated Press
Published: Friday, May 23, 2008 11:11 AM EDT
WINDSOR, Colo. — Residents of a devastated neighborhood grabbed what
they could from their debris-strewn homes before police imposed an
overnight curfew after a tornado swept through northern Colorado,
killing one person and injuring 13.
The twister skipped through several towns in Weld County on Thursday,
damaging or destroying dozens of homes, businesses, dairies, and farms.
The storm system pelted the region with golf-ball-size hail, swept
vehicles off roads, and tipped 15 rail cars off the tracks in Windsor,
a farm town about 70 miles north of Denver.
“It sounded like all the doors were being torn off the house,” said
Kelly Keil, who grabbed her 5-year-old daughter and took cover in a
closet in her home, which was spared major damage.
Gov. Bill Ritter toured the area and declared a local state of
emergency, but an inventory of damaged homes had to wait until daylight
today. Federal, state, and local officials were assembling damage
assessment teams overnight.
Severe storms, some including tornadoes, also ripped through parts of
Wyoming, Kansas and California on Thursday.
Heavy equipment cleared trees, utility poles, and mangled wood and
metal from the streets of the east Windsor neighborhood where the most
damage occurred. Police enforced an overnight curfew to deter looting
and ensure residents’ safety in case of natural gas leaks, while
officers with search dogs went door to door to look for anyone missing.
Resident Loree Wilkinson, 39, and her children, ages 6 and 9, huddled
in a basement and prayed as the tornado passed overhead. She said her
youngest child, Kazden, prayed: “Please don’t let me die because I just
graduated from kindergarten.”
The large storm cloud descended nearly without warning, touching down
near Platteville, about 50 miles north of Denver. Over the next hour,
it moved northwest past several towns along a 35-mile-long track and
into Wyoming.
Oscar Michael Manchester, 52, was killed at a campground west of
Greeley, about 60 miles north of Denver, said Weld County Deputy
Coroner Chris Robillard. Pete Ambrose, caretaker at the Missile Park
campground, said Manchester was in a recreational vehicle that was
destroyed by the storm.
Nine people were hospitalized with various injuries at the Medical
Center of the Rockies in Loveland, spokesman Alex Stuessie said. In
Greeley, four people were treated for minor injuries at North Colorado
Medical Center, administrative representative Laurie Hamit said.
The Red Cross served food to about 130 people in Windsor who were
displaced by the storm, but by nightfall only one family was staying at
a shelter at a fairgrounds outside town.
The tornado overturned 15 railroad cars and destroyed a lumber car on
the Great Western Railway of Colorado, said Mike Ogburn, managing
director of Denver-based Omnitrax Inc., which manages the railroad.
Fourteen of the overturned cars were tankers, but they were empty.
The twister toppled tractor-trailers across Highway 85 and cut power to
60,000 customers. Electricity was restored to all but 15,000 by late
Thursday. Xcel Energy said it lost two large transmission lines and
about 200 utility poles. The utility also responded to a handful of
natural gas leaks at homes that were ripped off their foundations,
spokesman Tom Henley said.
Jim Kalina, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said two or three
major storm cells affected the area and officials were trying to
confirm how many tornados touched down.
Weld County is known as a prolific tornado spawning ground, with about
seven typically reported there each year, according to the weather
service.
In Kansas, early reports indicated that about 10 tornadoes passed
through the western part of the state Thursday evening, said Scott
Mentzer, a weather service meteorologist in Goodland.
He said a few barely touched down, but a couple moved along 30 to 50
miles on the ground in Sheridan and Decatur counties. Authorities said
the tornadoes destroyed one home and damaged several others.
Officials were trying to verify whether a tornado touched down in
Laramie, Wyo., where a storm packing strong winds damaged several
buildings, overturned vehicles and knocked out power Thursday afternoon.
Later, a tornado touched down in a rural area near the town of Burns,
Wyo., about 10 miles east of Cheyenne, said Rob Cleveland, director of
Laramie County Emergency Management. The storm did minor damage to two
homes and destroyed a barn, but there were no injuries, Cleveland said.
Elsewhere, a storm system that lashed Southern California on Thursday
unleashed mudslides in wildfire-scarred canyons, spawned at least two
tornadoes and dusted mountains and even low-lying communities with snow
and hail.
Powerful wind or a funnel cloud toppled a tractor-trailer and freight
cars, said Riverside County fire spokeswoman Jody Hageman.
California Highway Patrol Officer Alex Santos was watching the wild
weather from a highway overpass in Moreno Valley, about 60 miles east
of Los Angeles, when he saw two tornados closing in.
“There was so much dust you couldn’t see. Next thing I know I see this
big rig getting toppled over,” Santos said. He said the driver had to
be cut free from the cab and suffered head and back injuries.
About 100 people have died in U.S. twisters so far this year, the worst
toll in a decade, according to the weather service, and the danger has
not passed yet. Tornado season typically peaks in the spring and early
summer, then again in the late fall.
TYPHOON, CYCLONE (EAST OF THE DATE LINE AND INDIAN OCEAN)
Taiwan hotel collapses
after typhoon. Weather forecasters predicting
more heavy rain later in the week - 29 September 2009 (r.)
Page last updated at 13:11
GMT, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 14:11 UK
Philippine flood
death toll rises
The Philippines government says 246
people are now known to have died in severe flooding caused when
Tropical Storm Ketsana struck on Saturday.
The country has
appealed for foreign aid to deal with the disaster, which has displaced
450,000 people and left 380,000 living in makeshift shelters.
Public buildings including schools, universities and the
presidential palace have become relief centres.
The storm has now hit Vietnam, where at least 22 people are
said to have died.
The Vietnamese government earlier ordered the evacuation of
more
than 170,000 people as strong winds of up to 150km/h (93mph) and heavy
rain began to affect the central coast.
Local media report that
Ketsana, which has now strengthened into a typhoon, has caused flooding
and power cuts. Vietnam Airlines has suspended all flights to the
coastal cities of Danang and Hue.
Weather forecasters are
predicting more heavy rain later this week, with a new storm forming in
the Pacific likely to enter Philippine waters on Thursday, making
landfall on the island of Luzon.
Fragile situation
"Evacuees will be given shelter in
available areas among the Malacanang [palace] buildings and in tents
that will be put up in between the buildings," Philippines President
Arroyo said in a statement announcing the opening of the palace
compound.
She said that if required, palace employees would
"yield their work stations to provide more space for our displaced
countrymen", and that she had temporarily moved her office to another
section of the compound along the Pasig river.
After word of the offer spread, hundreds of people converged
on the
palace and received plastic bags filled with noodles and canned
sardines.
"We just heard it in the news that they are giving
relief goods at the palace so we walked for one hour," street sweeper
Rosette Serrano, 31, told the AFP news agency.
Ms Serrano lost everything except her clothes when her house
was submerged on Saturday.
But
officials said people would not be permitted to remain inside the
presidential compound unless they were first checked by aid
organisations.
"We cannot just allow every evacuee in because
of logistical and security problems," Wilfredo Oca, an aid to Mrs
Arroyo, told AFP.
The sharp rise in the death toll - up 100
from the previous figure - came after more than 90 deaths were recorded
in Manila, the National Disaster Co-ordinating Council said in a
statement.
The toll is expected to rise further as thick mud is
cleared from the worst affected parts of the city. Troops, police and
volunteers have so far rescued more than 12,000 people.
Appeal
Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said the situation could
become worse if aid supplies ran out.
Prime Minister of Taiwan Quits Over Typhoon Response
NYTIMES
By EDWARD WONG
September 8, 2009
BEIJING — The prime minister of Taiwan resigned Monday because of the
government’s widely criticized response to a deadly typhoon and said
that his successor would replace the entire cabinet this week.
The announcement at a news conference by Liu Chao-shiuan, the prime
minister, came as a surprise, even though the government had come under
intense pressure for what many Taiwanese called its inept handling of
Typhoon Morakot. The storm slammed into Taiwan in early August and left
at least 700 people dead or missing after three days of heavy rain set
off huge mudslides. Mr. Liu’s resignation is the most serious political
fallout yet from the typhoon.
Popular support for President Ma Ying-jeou, who was elected by a wide
margin in the spring of 2008 on a platform of rejuvenating the economy
and improving ties with mainland China, has plummeted in the aftermath
of the disaster. Mr. Ma reluctantly allowed the Dalai Lama, the exiled
spiritual leader of the Tibetans who is accused of being a separatist
by mainland China, to visit Taiwan last week to give succor to typhoon
victims. Some analysts said it was a sign of Mr. Ma’s desperation.
Mr. Ma, who has the power to appoint the prime minister, chose Wu
Den-yih as the replacement for Mr. Liu. Since 2007, Mr. Wu has been
general secretary of the Kuomintang, the party to which Mr. Ma belongs
and that ruled Taiwan for decades after retreating here in 1949 after
its loss to the Communists in the Chinese civil war. Mr. Wu was
appointed as mayor of Kaohsiung, a city in southern Taiwan, from 1990
to 1994, and he served as mayor again for four more years after being
elected.
At the news conference on Monday, Mr. Liu said he had first offered Mr.
Ma his resignation in mid-August. Mr. Ma had asked him to stay, he
said, but Mr. Liu had “firmly made up my mind.” The two men had a
conversation on Sunday night at the house of Mr. Liu’s mother, Mr. Liu
said.
“I believe because so many people died, someone must take
responsibility,” he said.
The prime minister appoints the entire cabinet, which has eight
ministries established under the Constitution and many newer
commissions. The current cabinet will resign together on Thursday, Mr.
Liu said.
Critics of the government say President Ma and other leaders should
have evacuated residents in vulnerable areas before the typhoon hit and
accepted foreign aid earlier, among other things. Mr. Ma had said he
might reshuffle some members of his cabinet, but there had been no hint
that the prime minister and entire cabinet would resign.
Bruce Jacobs, a scholar of Taiwan at Monash University in Australia,
said he was surprised to hear of the change, but that Mr. Liu deserved
to be held accountable for the “disastrous” government response to
Typhoon Morakot.
“I think generally people will be pleased because there’s a change, but
whether they’ll be pleased with Wu Den-yih, I don’t know,” Mr. Jacobs
said.
He added that Mr. Wu was a somewhat disappointing choice because he is
not known as someone who presses anticorruption efforts within the
Kuomintang, which has conservative factions that critics accuse of
being corrupt and anti-democratic. But a reform-minded party member,
Eric Chu, has been appointed the vice prime minister, Mr. Jacobs said.
Mr. Wu is a native Taiwanese and speaks the Taiwanese dialect fluently,
which could give him an advantage over Mr. Liu in trying to quell anger
in the aftermath of the typhoon. Some of the worst hit areas were in
southern Taiwan, dominated by native Taiwanese, who lived on the island
well before the Chinese fleeing the civil war settled there.
China evacuation as typhoon hits
I-BBC
Page last updated at 01:39 GMT, Monday, 10 August 2009 02:39 UK
Nearly one-million people have been evacuated from the
coastal regions of China which are being battered by Typhoon Morakot.
Winds of up 119km/h (74mph) destroyed houses and flooded
farmland. Flights were cancelled and fishing boats recalled to
shore. A small boy died when a building collapsed.
Meanwhile, in Japan nine people are reported dead in floods and
landslides after Typhoon Etau brought heavy rain to the west of the
country. Eight people died in Hyogo prefecture, including one man
whose car was swept away by a swollen river, and another died in
neighbouring Okayama prefecture.
Another 10 people are missing.
'Treetops visible'
Chinese state media said that the sky turned completely dark in Beibi,
Fujian, when Typhoon Morakot made landfall on Sunday morning.
Some 473,000 residents of Zhejiang province were evacuated before the
typhoon struck, as well as 480,000 from Fujian, Xinhua news agency
said. In Zhejiang's Wenzhou City a four year-old child was killed
when a house collapsed. Dozens of roads were said to be flooded and the
city's airport was closed.
Rescuers used dinghies to reach worst-hit areas; in one area only the
tops of trees were said to be showing above the floodwater.
Taiwan devastation
Earlier, Morakot dumped 250cm of rain on Taiwan as it crossed the
island, washing away bridges and roads. At least three people
died in some of the worst flooding for 50 years. In one incident,
an entire hotel - empty at the time - was swept away by the
waters. At least three people were known to have died - a woman
whose car went into a ditch and two men who drowned.
Thirty-one others were reported missing, Taiwan's Disaster Relief
Centre said. Among them were a group reportedly washed away from a
make-shift shelter in Kaohsiung in the south.
At least 10,000 people were trapped in three coastal towns, a local
official in the southern county of Pingtung said. In Chihpen, one
of Taiwan's most famous hot spring resorts, a hotel collapsed after
flood waters undermined its foundations.
Morakot - which means emerald in Thai - has also contributed to heavy
rains in the Philippines. At least 10 people were killed in flooding
and landslides in the north.
Typhoons are frequent in the region between July and September.
9
Killed as Typhoon Etau Hits Western Japan
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 9, 2009Filed at 9:22 p.m. ET
TOKYO (AP) -- At least nine people were killed Monday in western Japan
in floods and landslides triggered by heavy rain as Typhoon Etau
slammed into the country.
The typhoon left eight people dead in Hyogo prefecture, police official
Shigekazu Kamenobu said. He could not provide details but said many
were caught in raging waters.
''At least one man was swept away in a river while he was in a car. His
body was later found inside the vehicle,'' Kamenobu said.
A woman was found dead in her house that was destroyed by a landslide
in neighboring Okayama prefecture, police official Wataru Yamamoto said.
Public broadcaster NHK reported that 10 people were missing in western
Japan. Police were not able to confirm how many people were unaccounted
for.
Japan's Meteorological Agency also warned of heavy precipitation and
landslides in eastern Japan as Etau moves inland.
A
Million in China Evacuate Ahead of
Typhoon
NYTIMES
By MICHAEL WINES
August 10, 2009
BEIJING — Saying they were taking no chances, Chinese officials
evacuated a million coastal residents on Sunday as a weakened Typhoon
Morakot swept onto the mainland south of Shanghai after battering
Taiwan the day before.
A 4-year-old child was reported dead after the storm hit Wenzhou, a
manufacturing city in Zhejiang province on the east coast, on Sunday
afternoon. The child was among five people buried when the winds
collapsed five adjacent houses in the city of nearly 1.4 million.
Wenzhou officials said the storm had destroyed more than 300 homes.
Authorities said that the storm was whipping up waves as high at 26
feet in the east China Sea and in the strait between Taiwan and
mainland China.
As it hit the Chinese mainland, the typhoon carried winds of up to 111
miles per hour, China’s state-run Xinhua news service said, but
meteorologists reported later that it had degraded close to tropical
storm status, with 74 miles per hour winds.
The typhoon, the eighth of the season, came ashore at 4:20 p.m. China
time at Xiapu County, in north Fujian Province. Xinhua said that more
than 490,000 people had been moved to safety in Fujian, and 48,000
boats summoned back to harbor.
In Zhejiang Province, between Fujian and Shanghai, another 505,000
people were evacuated and 35,000 boats called in.
Both provinces are manufacturing centers with large populations living
in oceanside port cities. Just north of the typhoon’s landfall,
Shanghai was spared the worst winds but nevertheless canceled airline
flights and lowered river reservoirs to prepare for flooding.
Xinhua said that relief teams were distributing food and water to rural
villagers who had been stranded by high waters.
Earlier, Taiwan’s Disaster Relief Center told The Associated Press that
three people were killed and 31 were missing and feared dead after the
storm swamped the island throughout Saturday with high winds and more
than 80 inches of rain in some areas. Sixteen of the missing were from
one family that had lived in a makeshift house in Kaohsiung, in the
island’s south, that was swept away by the waters.
In southeastern Taiwain’s Taitung County, a six-story hotel collapsed
into a neighboring river after torrential rains eroded its foundation,
but officials said all 300 guests had been safely evacuated.
Authorities said the Taiwan flooding was the worst in a half-century.
More than 170,000 persons remained without power on Monday the
government said.
Morakot, which means emerald in Thai, had struck the Philippines
earlier, killing 21, including one French and two Belgian tourist,
according to the National Disaster Coordinating Council there. Seven
others were reported missing.
The government reported that more than 83,000 Philippines residents
were affected by floodwaters and landslides, and 22,000 had been
evacuated.
In the South China Sea, Xinhua reported that three fishermen were dead
and at least 26 mariners were reported missing in the wake of tropical
storm Goni, which had struck China’s southern Guangdong Province on
Tuesday and left Hainan Province on Sunday
EARTHQUAKES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
The San Andreas Fault extends almost the full length of
California; 4.5 on the Richter Scale on
Whidbey Island. Hilltown
in Italy. Basel attempt like
California? N.Y.C. story
here...Haiti. Now Chile...
Powerful 7.1 quake hits New Zealand's
South Island
YAHOO
By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck
much of New Zealand's South Island early Saturday and caused widespread
damage, but there were just two reports of serious injuries. Looters
broke into some damaged shops in Christchurch, police said. The
quake, which hit 19 miles (30 kilometers) west of the southern city of
Christchurch according to the state geological agency GNS Science,
shook a wide area, with some residents saying buildings had collapsed
and power was severed. No tsunami alert was issued.
GNS Science initially reported the quake as magnitude 7.4, but later
downgraded it after re-examining quake records. The U.S. Geological
Survey, in America, measured the quake at 7.0. Christchurch Mayor
Bob Parker declared a state of emergency four hours after the quake
rocked the region, warning people that continuing aftershocks could
cause masonry to fall from damaged buildings. The emergency meant
parts of the city would be closed off and some buildings closed as
unsafe, he said.
Minister of Civil Defense John Carter said a state of civil emergency
was declared as the quake was "a significant disaster," and army troops
were on standby to assist.
Parker said the "sharp, vicious earthquake has caused significant
damage in parts of the city ... with walls collapsed that have fallen
into the streets."
Chimneys and walls had fallen from older buildings, with roads blocked,
traffic lights out and power, gas and water supplies disrupted, he said.
"The fronts of at least five buildings in the central city have
collapsed and rubble is strewn across many roads," Christchurch
resident Angela Morgan told The Associated Press.
"Roads have subsided where water mains have broken and a lot of people
evacuated in panic from seaside areas for fear of a tsunami," she said,
adding that "there is quite significant damage, really, with reports
that some people were trapped in damaged houses."
Christchurch fire service spokesman Mike Bowden said a number of people
had been trapped in buildings by fallen chimneys and blocked entrances,
but there were no reports of people pinned under rubble. Rescue teams
were out checking premises. Christchurch Hospital said it had
treated two men with serious injuries and a number of people with minor
injuries. One man was hit by a falling chimney and was in serious
condition in intensive care, while a second was badly cut by glass,
hospital spokeswoman Michele Hider said.
Christchurch police reported road damage in parts of the city of
400,000 people, with a series of sharp aftershocks rocking the area.
Police officers cordoned off some streets where rubble was strewn
about. Video showed parked cars crushed by heaps of fallen bricks, and
buckled roads.
"There is considerable damage in the central city and we've also had
reports of looting, just shop windows broken and easy picking of
displays," Police Inspector Mike Coleman told New Zealand's National
Radio.
Police Inspector Alf Stewart told the radio that some people had been
arrested for looting.
"We have some reports of people smashing (storefront) windows and
trying to grab some property that is not theirs ... we've got police on
the streets and we're dealing with that," he said.
Suburban dweller Mark O'Connell said his house was full of smashed
glass, food tossed from shelves, with sets of drawers, TVs and
computers tipped over.
"She was a beauty, we were thrown from wall to wall as we tried to
escape down the stairs to get to safety," he told the AP. "It was pitch
black (with the power cut) and we walked through smashed glass
everywhere on the floor."
The quake hit at 4:35 a.m. (1635 GMT) shaking thousands of residents
awake, New Zealand's National Radio reported. Some 12 aftershocks have
rocked the region since, ranging from 5.3 to 3.9 in magnitude, GNS
Science reported on its web site. Prime Minister John Key, Carter
and Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee were to fly to Christchurch to
inspect damage and review the situation, officials said.
Civil defense agency spokesman David Millar said at least six bridges
in the region had been badly damaged, while the historic Empire hotel
in the port town of Lyttelton was "very unstable" and in danger of
collapse. Roads, shops and other buildings in rural towns around
Christchurch had also suffered damage, with some shop fronts knocked
down in the jolt.
Inspector Coleman said residents of the city's low-lying eastern
suburbs had been advised to be ready to evacuate their properties,
after power, gas, sewerage and water systems were cut by the
quake. Resident Colleen Simpson said panicked residents ran into
the street in their pajamas. Some buildings had collapsed, there was no
power, and the mobile telephone network had failed.
"Oh my God. There is a row of shops completely demolished right in
front of me," Simpson told the Stuff news Web site.
Kiwirail rail transport group spokesman Kevin Ramshaw said 13 mostly
freight trains had been halted on South Island lines, with some damage
already confirmed to rail lines north of Christchurch.
Christchurch International Airport was closed after the quake as a
precaution, as experts checked runways and terminal buildings, a
spokesman said. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said "no
destructive widespread tsunami threat existed, based on historical
earthquake and tsunami data."
New Zealand sits above an area of the Earth's crust where two tectonic
plates collide. The country records more than 14,000 earthquakes a year
— but only about 150 are felt by residents. Fewer than 10 a year do any
damage. New Zealand's last major earthquake was a magnitude 7.8
in South Island's Fiordland region on July 16, 2009 — a tremblor which
moved the southern tip of the country 12 inches (30 centimeters) closer
to Australia, seismologist Ken Gledhill said at the time.
Gledhill, director of GNS Science's "GeoNet" national earthquake
monitoring project, said the island's geographic shift showed the
immensity of the forces involved.
Strong
earthquake rocks New Zealand's
South Island
I-BBC,
3 September 2010 Last updated at 13:12 ET
A 7.2-magnitude earthquake has struck off New Zealand's South Island,
the US Geological Survey has said. The epicentre was 30km (20
miles) north-west of Christchurch, at a depth of 16.1 km (10 miles), it
added.
There have so far been no reports of any damage or casualties.
Christchurch is New Zealand's third largest city with a population of
about 342,000. The Pacific Tsunami Warning centre has reportedly
said that "no destructive widespread tsunami threat" exists. The
Christchurch-based newspaper, The Press, said aftershocks were ongoing
and that the electricity supply appeared to have been knocked out
across much of the city.
The earthquake struck at 0435 on Saturday (1635 GMT on Friday), when
most people would have been asleep.
Minor earthquake rattles the
D.C. area
Washington Times
By Karen Mahabir ASSOCIATED PRESS
8:03 a.m., Friday, July 16, 2010
WASHINGTON (AP) — A minor earthquake shook
residents awake in the DC area early Friday. The quake hit at
5:04
a.m. EDT and had a magnitude of 3.6. The quake was centered in
the
Rockville, Md., area said Randy Baldwin,
a physicist with U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake
Information Center. Police in Washington and in nearby Montgomery
County, Md., said there
were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
On the U.S. Geological Survey's website, people as far away as
Pennsylvania and West Virginia reported feeling the quake.
Lucille Baur, public information officer for the Montgomery County
Police Department, said the department received a lot of calls from
people wondering what had happened.
Debby Taylor Busse said she was in the basement of her home in Vienna,
Va., in Fairfax County when she felt the quake hit. She was already
awake watching television, but her husband had been asleep in a
second-floor bedroom when the tremor woke him.
"I didn't know what it was," Busse said. "I have never been in an
earthquake before. It felt like an airplane going overhead or thunder,
but it wasn't coming from above."
She said it lasted just a few seconds and compared it to a strong
thunder strike — enough to rattle the house, but not enough to knock
anything over. Brett Snyder, who lives in Gaithersburg, Md., told
AP Radio he was
awakened by the quake but said it wasn't a big deal.
"It happened very instantaneously and then off to a day's work," Snyder
said.
In the neighborhood of G-20
(Toronto)...
Rare earthquake shakes Ottawa, Montreal
YAHOO
23 June 2010
OTTAWA (AFP) – A strong earthquake shook Ottawa and Montreal in eastern
Canada on Wednesday, forcing office workers out onto downtown streets
in the nation's capital.
The US Geological Survey reported the temblor of a magnitude of 5.5 hit
the Ontario-Quebec border area at 1741 GMT, rattling downtown Ottawa
shortly after midday.
The USGS said the epicenter was 61 kilometers (38 miles) north of
Ottawa.
AFP journalists witnessed walls in downtown office buildings shaking
for several seconds. Cracks appeared in the Parliamentary Press Gallery
building in Ottawa, and outside some people appeared shaken up, but
unhurt.
Most downtown Ottawa buildings appeared to have been evacuated as
alarms rang out.
James Bowden, a former resident of Alaska who experienced several
earthquakes in the US state, was standing in line at a fast-food
restaurant on Ottawa's Sparks Street when he said he "heard the
earthquake coming a few seconds before it hit."
"It sounded like a freight train barreling towards us," he said.
An avid reader of earthquake sciences, Bowden said Ottawa experiences
earthquakes every four or five years. "This one was fairly big," he
said.
Several dozen much weaker earthquakes, linked to the Logan faultline
along the Saint Lawrence seaway, strike in Quebec province each year.
The last major quake, of a magnitude 6.0, struck in 1988 in the
Saguenay region, about 500 kilometers north of Montreal.
5.7 quake rattles
California-Mexico
border
Washington Times
By Elliot Spaga,t ASSOCIATED PRESS
8:48 a.m., Tuesday, June 15, 2010
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The U.S.-Mexico border in California was rocked by a
magnitude-5.7 earthquake Monday night, rattling nerves in a region
still recovering from the deadly Easter jolt.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered five miles
southeast of Ocotillo in Imperial County — about 85 miles east of San
Diego. It struck Monday at 9:26 p.m. PDT.
The quake was an aftershock of the deadly Easter Sunday magnitude-7.2
quake that shook Baja California and Southern California, said Egill
Hauksson, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena. He said the epicenter of Monday's quake occurred in the same
zone of the quake in April.
"Aftershocks can go on for months and years," he said.
Thousands of aftershocks have occurred since the Easter earthquake.
More than 100 aftershocks were recorded immediately following Monday's
5.7 quake, with the largest measuring at magnitude-4.5.
A 5.7-magnitude earthquake "could break windows, it could throw things
on the floor, it could create cracks on the wall, but we don't expect
things to collapse," Mr. Hauksson said.
San Diego County Office of Emergency Services had no reports of
significant damage. Louis Fuentes, chairman of the Imperial County
board of supervisors, also said he had no immediate reports of damage.
"As soon as it hit, my wife said, 'Grab the baby.' My daughter ran out
to the back yard," said Mr. Fuentes, who was in his garage in Calexico,
about 30 miles east of the epicenter. "It thumped really hard."
Mr. Fuentes said his chandeliers swayed at his home and metal objects
banged but nothing fell off the shelves. Imperial County suffered
significant damage in April's Easter Sunday quake.
"All the lamps, the liquor bottles and the TV hanging from the ceiling
shook, but nothing dropped," said Marina Garcia, an employee at the
Burgers and Beer restaurant in El Centro, about 30 miles east of
Ocotillo.
The quake was felt as a gentle rolling motion in the Los Angeles area.
San Diego's Petco Park swayed during the quake, causing a momentary
pause at the Toronto Blue Jays-San Diego Padres game. The public
address announcer asked that everyone remain calm. The crowd cheered.
David Eckstein of the Padres had just grounded out in the bottom of the
inning when the stadium began shaking. The next batter, Chase Headley,
stayed out of the batter's box for a few seconds, then stepped in.
San Diego County sheriff's dispatch supervisor Becky Strahm said some
of her colleagues reported things falling off their shelves, but there
were no immediate reports of significant damage or injury.
The quake followed a series of temblors that struck Southern California
over the weekend, including a pair of moderate earthquakes that rattled
a desert area east of San Diego. Residents in downtown San Diego felt
the ground rumbling during at least one of the Saturday quakes.
Associated Press Sports Writer Bernie Wilson in San Diego and
Associated Press writers Alicia Chang, Daisy Nguyen and Denise Petski
in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Click here
for reprint permission.
Quake in western China kills 400, buries
more
YAHOO
By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer
14 April 2010
BEIJING – A series of strong earthquakes struck a mountainous Tibetan
area of western China on Wednesday, killing at least 400 people and
injuring more than 10,000 as houses made of mud and wood collapsed,
officials said. Many more people were trapped and the toll was expected
to rise.
The largest quake was recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey as
magnitude 6.9. In the aftermath, panicked people, many bleeding from
their wounds, flooded the streets of a Qinghai province township where
most of the homes had been flattened. Students were reportedly buried
inside several damaged schools.
Paramilitary police used shovels to dig through the rubble in the town,
footage on state television showed. Officials said excavators were not
available and with most of the roads leading to the nearest airport
damaged, equipment and rescuers would have a hard time reaching the
area. Hospitals were overwhelmed, many lacking even the most basic
supplies, and doctors were in short supply.
Downed phone lines, strong winds and frequent aftershocks also hindered
rescue efforts, said Wu Yong, commander of the local army garrison, who
said the death toll "may rise further as lots of houses collapsed."
With many people forced outside, the provincial government said it was
rushing 5,000 tents and 100,000 coats and blankets to the mountainous
region, at around 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) -high and where night time
temperatures plunge below freezing.
Workers were racing to release water from a reservoir in the disaster
area where a crack had formed after the quake to prevent a flood,
according to the China Earthquake Administration...full story here.
Strong quake
kills 2 in Mexico, rattles US states
YAHOO
By MARIANA MARTINEZ and CHRISTOPHER WEBER, Associated Press Writers
April 5, 2010
TIJUANA, Mexico – A powerful earthquake swayed buildings from Los
Angeles to Tijuana, killing two people in Mexico, blacking out cities
and forcing the evacuation of hospitals and nursing homes. One
California city closed off its downtown due to unstable
buildings. The
7.2-magnitude quake centered
just south of the U.S. border near
Mexicali was one of the strongest earthquakes to hit region in decades.
"It sounds like it's felt by at least 20 million people," USGS
seismologist Lucy Jones said. "Most of Southern California felt this
earthquake."
Sunday afternoon's earthquake hit hardest in Mexicali, a bustling
commerce center along Mexico's border with California, where
authorities said the quake was followed by many smaller aftershocks,
including five with magnitudes between 5.0 and 5.4. The initial quake
had a shallow depth of 6 miles (10 kilometers).
"It has not stopped trembling in Mexicali," said Baja California state
Civil Protection Director Alfredo Escobedo...see story below from
earlier.
See above for
story the next morning...
Magnitude 6.9
quake strikes Baja California
YAHOO
By CHRISTOPHER WEBER, Associated Press Writer
4 April 2010
LOS ANGELES – 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.
Page last updated at 12:29 GMT, Monday, 8 March 2010
Strong earthquake hits eastern Turkey
The injured were ferried to hospital with the help of relatives
A strong earthquake has struck eastern Turkey, killing at least 57
people, officials have said.
The 6.0-magnitude quake, centred on the village of Basyurt in Elazig
province, struck at 0432 (0232 GMT). It has been followed by more than
40 aftershocks.
Officials said the nearby village of Okcular had been almost destroyed
and several others badly damaged.
A number of people were trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings,
many of which were built of mud-bricks.
"Villages consisting mainly of mud-brick houses have been damaged, but
we have minimal damage such as cracks in buildings made of cement or
stone," Elazig Governor Muammer Erol told CNN Turk.
At least 17 of the dead came from the hillside village of Okcular,
where up to 30 houses collapsed, rescuers said.
"The village is totally flattened," Okcular's administrator, Hasan
Demirdag, told NTV.
Television footage from Okcular showed rescue workers and soldiers
digging among the rubble of collapsed buildings as villagers looked on.
Ali Riza Ferhat, a resident, said he had been asleep in his home when
the earthquake struck.
"I tried to get out of the door but it wouldn't open. I came out of the
window and started helping my neighbours," he told NTV. "We removed six
bodies."
The nearby villages of Yukari Kanatli, Kayalik, Gocmezler and Yukari
Demirci were also badly damaged and each reported several deaths.
Map showing Turkey quake location
"Everything has been knocked down - there is not a stone in place,"
Yadin Apaydin, the administrator for Yukari Kanatli, told CNN Turk.
At least 50 people have been taken to hospital, officials say. Some
were reportedly hurt during the panic after the first earthquake, when
they jumped from windows or balconies.
Residents of the affected villages have been warned not to return to
damaged homes while the area continues to be hit by aftershocks, the
strongest of which have so far measured 5.1 and 5.5.
The government disaster management centre and Turkish Red Crescent have
set up tents to help survivors cope with the harsh winter weather, and
are also distributing food and blankets.
Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek and three other ministers have
travelled to the earthquake zone to provide assistance.
Elderly woman stands next to her collapsed home (8 March 2010)
In Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lamented the lack of
earthquake-safe buildings and said he had ordered the start of a
reconstruction project in the area.
"Mud-brick construction is undoubtedly a local tradition. But
unfortunately, it has proved to have a heavy price," he said.
A BBC News website reader who visited the village of Basyurt after the
earthquake said its residents blamed the government for the destruction
and loss of life.
"This is a seismic area. We've experienced so many earthquakes in the
last 20 years, yet no measures have been taken to strengthen the
buildings," Volkan Durkal said.
"Most houses are not made with cement, they are not well-built and the
people are not well-educated about what to do and where to take cover
during an earthquake."
Turkey is plagued by earthquakes - generally minor - because of its
location on the North Anatolian fault line.
A 7.4-magnitude tremor which hit the western city of Izmit in August
1999 killed more than 17,000 people.
The BBC's Jonathan Head in Istanbul says poor quality buildings were
also blamed for the high death toll then and there is still concern in
Turkey's largest city, where seismologists predict a major earthquake
will occur within the next few decades.
Biggest aftershock hits Chile on inauguration day
YAHOO
By MICHAEL WARREN, Associated Press Writer
March 11, 2010
SANTIAGO, Chile – The largest aftershock since Chile's devastating
earthquake rocked the South American country Thursday minutes before
the inauguration of President Sebastian Pinera.
The 7.2-magnitude aftershock was stronger than the Jan. 12 quake that
devastated the Haitian capital. It happened along the same fault zone
as Chile's magnitude-8.8 quake on Feb. 27, said geophysicist Don
Blakeman at the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado.
"When we get quakes in the 8 range, we would expect to see maybe a
couple of aftershocks in the 7 range," he said.
Blakeman said Chile now can expect to feel "aftershocks of the
aftershock."
"It's not a sign of anything different happening. But what does occur
when you get these large aftershocks, typically we have a whole series
of aftershocks again," Blakeman said.
The temblor rocked buildings and shook windows in the capital, and
provoked nervous smiles among dignitaries arriving for the ceremony at
the congressional building in coastal Valparaiso. Bolivian President
Evo Morales seemed briefly disoriented and Peru's Alan Garcia joked
that it gave them "a moment to dance."
Buildings emptied and streets crowded with people seeking higher ground
in coastal Constitucion, a city wiped out by the tsunami that followed
the quake. Pinera planned to visit the city shortly after his
swearing-in.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further
information. AP's earlier story is below.
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Two strongly felt earthquakes have rocked
central Chile as dignitaries arrive for the inauguration of
President-elect Sebastian Pinera.
The U.S. Geological Survey says the first quake had a preliminary
magnitude of 5.1 and the second registered at 7.2. Both rocked
buildings in the capital, shook windows and provoked nervous smiles
among dignitaries arriving for Thursday's ceremony at the congressional
building in coastal Valparaiso.
Bolivian President Evo Morales seemed briefly disoriented. Peru's Alan
Garcia joked that it gave them "a moment to dance."
Strong aftershocks hit quake-stunned Chile
YAHOO
By MICHAEL WARREN and EVA VERGARIA, Associated Press Writer
March 5, 2010
CONCEPCION, Chile – The most powerful aftershock in six days sent
terrified Chileans fleeing into quake-shattered streets and forced
doctors to evacuate some patients from a major hospital on Friday as
the nation struggled to comprehend the scope of the disaster that hit
it.
People raced into the streets in pajamas as a magnitude-6.0 aftershock
struck Concepcion shortly before dawn. A magnitude-6.6 shock at
8:47 a.m. (6:47 a.m. EST; 1147 GMT) then rattled buildings for nearly a
minute. It was the strongest aftershock since a magnitude-6.9
jolt shortly after Saturday's historic quake and it sent office chairs
spilling from upper floor of an already-damaged 22-story building.
Fear of additional damage led officials to evacuate some patients from
the regional hospital in downtown Concepcion.
"They sent us all home," said 47-year-old Aaron Valenzuela, who hobbled
through the street because four toes had been amputated due to an
injury he suffered in Saturday's big quake.
Dr. Patricia Correa, who was overseeing the hospital's emergency ward,
said her part of the five-story building "is on the point of
collapsing. The walls cracked."
As a daily curfew meant to halt looting expired at noon, people flooded
into the streets of Concepcion and formed lines about 100 long behind
an intermittently functioning automatic teller machine, for a rare open
pharmacy and at a corner store. A sign at the shop announced it
was out of flour, water, candles, rice, cheese, eggs and diapers,
though jam, sugar, coffee and onions remained. President Michelle
Bachelet, meanwhile, met with her successor, Sebastian Pinera, and they
promised to try to avoid letting the March 11 hand-over of power
interrupt aid efforts.
"The new government will have an immense challenge," Bachelet said.
Officials were still struggling to determine the human toll of the
magnitude-8.8 quake, as well as the damage to roads, ports and
buildings such as hospitals. Disaster officials announced they
had double-counted at least 271 missing as dead in the hardest-hit part
of the country — an error that would drop the official death toll to
about 540 if there were no other mistakes.
But Interior Department officials said that from now on, they would
release only the number of dead who had been identified: 279 as of
Friday.
The government also said Friday it had removed Cmdr. Mariano Rojas as
head of the Navy's oceanographic service over its failure to issue a
tsunami warning for the Pacific immediately after Saturday's
quake. Port captains in several towns issued their own warnings,
but a national alert never came, and some say that failure led to
deaths. The tsunami is believed responsible for much of the deaths and
damage. Bachelet says it will take three years to rebuild the
region wracked by the earthquake and tsunami, and that task is all too
clear to the people trying to clean up the ruins of their towns.
In the tourist town of Dichato, a few kilometers (miles) north up the
coast from Concepcion, the quake and tsunami killed at least 19 people
and smashed neat wooden houses and small hotels into huge piles of
splinters. The town of 4,000 people stank Thursday of decomposing
fish and a fishing boat marooned far inland was full of rotting octopus.
Bachelet's government had made a difference in the town before the
quake, building 130 neat mustard-yellow duplexes in a public housing
project that opened in September and providing 60 million pesos —
$120,000 — to restore the facades of businesses along main street, said
Mabel Gomez, president of the local chamber of commerce. But as
they rooted through the ruins, Dichato's residents said they are
pinning their hopes for renewal on the next president, a conservative
billionaire.
"I think he has the ability to do it," said Luis Omar Cid Jara, 66,
whose bakery and roast chicken shop were destroyed.
Pinera, who takes office March 11, named new governors for the six
hardest-hit regions and told them to get to work even before his
inauguration. His immediate priorities: Find the missing; ensure law
and order; restore utilities; and tend to the injured. Pinera
also stepped up his criticism of Bachelet's administration on Thursday,
knocking "the lack of coordination and the weaknesses that this tragedy
has uncovered with brutal eloquence."
Critics said Bachelet initially was reluctant to summon the military to
stop looting and deliver aid, given the armed forces' brutal repression
of the Chilean left in the past, especially during the 1973-1990
dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Top military officers had
complained they couldn't deploy troops to quash looting or deliver aid
until Bachelet finally declared a state of emergency more than 24 hours
after the temblor.
The magnitude-8.8 quake — one of the strongest on record — and the
tsunami that followed ravaged a 700-kilometer (435-mile) stretch of
Chile's Pacific coast.
In the coastal town of Constitucion, firefighters were looking for
bodies of people swept away by the tsunami as they camped on Isla
Orrego, an island in the mouth of the Maure River that flows through
the city.
Constitucion suffered perhaps the greatest loss of life in the
disaster, in part because many people had come for carnival
celebrations and were caught in huge waves that reached the central
plaza.
"There were about 200 people in tents who disappeared" on Isla Orrego,
Fire Chief Miguel Reyes told The Associated Press. An AP Television
News crew witnessed several bodies being recovered, including that of a
baby girl washed up on the beach.
Underwater
Plate Cuts 400-Mile Gash
NYTIMES
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
February
27, 2010
The magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile early
Saturday morning occurred along the same fault responsible for the
biggest quake ever measured, a 1960 tremor that killed nearly 2,000
people in Chile and hundreds more across the Pacific.
Both earthquakes took place along a fault zone where the Nazca tectonic
plate, the section of the earth’s crust that lies under the Eastern
Pacific Ocean south of the Equator, is sliding beneath another section,
the South American plate. The two are converging at a rate of about
three and a half inches a year.
Earthquake experts said the strains built up by that movement, plus the
stresses added along the fault zone by the 1960 quake, led to the
rupture on Saturday along what is estimated to be about 400 miles of
the zone, at a depth of about 22 miles under the sea floor. The quake
generated a tsunami, with small surges hitting the West Coast of the
United States and slightly larger ones in Hawaii and other parts of the
Pacific. A 7.7-foot surge was recorded in Talcahuano, Chile.
Jian Lin, a geophysicist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution,
said the quake occurred just north of the site of the 1960 earthquake,
with very little overlap. “Most of the rupture today picked up where
the 1960 rupture stopped,” said Mr. Lin, who has studied the 1960
event, which occurred along about 600 miles of the fault zone and was
measured at magnitude 9.5.
Like many other large earthquakes, the 1960 quake increased stresses on
adjacent parts of the fault zone, including the area where the quake
occurred Saturday. Although there had been smaller quakes in the area
in the ensuing 50 years, Mr. Lin said, none of them had been large
enough to relieve the strain, which kept building up as the two plates
converged. “This one should have released most of the stresses,” he
said.
Experts said the earthquake appeared to have no connection to a
magnitude 6.9 quake that struck off the southern coast of Japan late
Friday evening. Nor was the Chilean event linked to the magnitude 7.0
quake that occurred in Haiti on Jan. 12.
That quake, which is believed to have killed more than 200,000 people,
occurred along a strike-slip fault, in which most of the ground motion
is lateral. The Chilean earthquake occurred along a thrust fault, in
which most of the motion is vertical.
Mr. Lin said his calculations showed that the quake on Saturday was 250
to 350 times more powerful than the Haitian quake.
But Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the United States Geological
Survey in Golden, Colo., noted that at least on land, the effects of
the Chilean tremor might not be as bad. “Even though this quake is
larger, it’s probably not going to reap the devastation that the
Haitian quake did,” he said.
For one thing, he said, the quality of building construction is
generally better in Chile than in Haiti. And the fact that the quake
occurred offshore should also help limit the destruction. In Haiti, the
rupture occurred only a few miles from the capital, Port-au-Prince. The
rupture on Saturday was centered about 60 miles from the nearest town,
Chillan, and 70 miles from the country’s second-largest city,
Concepción.
In many respects, Mr. Lin said, the Chilean quake is similar to the
9.0-magnitude Indonesian earthquake of Dec. 26, 2004. That quake, which
also occurred along a thrust fault, generated a tsunami that killed
more than 200,000 people around the Indian Ocean. And like the 1960
Chilean quake, the Indonesian quake increased stresses nearby: it was
followed, just three months later, by an 8.7-magnitude quake on an
adjacent portion of the fault zone.
When they occur underwater, thrust-fault earthquakes like the one in
Chile are far more likely to create tsunamis than quakes on strike-slip
faults, said David Schwartz, an earthquake geologist with the
geological survey in Menlo Park, Calif. “When they slip, the fault that
causes the earthquake breaks the surface, and pushes the water up,” he
said. “It pushes an awful lot of water. And that water has to go
somewhere.”
The waves the quake produces travel across the ocean at high speed.
Along the way, their height can be measured by buoys linked by
satellite. But the height of the waves when they make landfall, and
their potential for destruction, often depends on local topography and
the profile of the nearby sea floor. A shallow shelf, for example, can
amplify the waves.
The tsunami that was generated by the 1960 quake devastated Hilo,
Hawaii, killing 61 people. Hilo is particularly vulnerable to tsunamis
because its bay and narrow harbor funnel the water, increasing wave
heights, which in 1960 reached 35 feet. But the tsunami also struck as
far as Japan, hitting northern parts of the main island, Honshu, about
a day after the quake and killing 185 people and destroying more than
1,600 homes.
Huge quake hits Chile; tsunami threatens
Pacific
YAHOO
By ROBERTO CANDIA and EVA VERGARA, Associated Press
Feb. 27, 2010
TALCA, Chile – A devastating earthquake struck Chile early
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. President-elect Sebastian Pinera said more than 120
people died, but the death toll was rising quickly. In the town
of Talca, just 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the
epicenter, Associated Press journalist Roberto Candia said it felt as
if a giant had grabbed him and shaken him.
The town's historic center, filled with buildings of adobe mud and
straw, largely collapsed, though most of those were businesses that
were not inhabited during the 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. EST, 0634 GMT)
quake. Neighbors pulled at least five people from the rubble while
emergency workers, themselves disoriented, asked for information from
reporters.
Many roads were destroyed, and electricity, water and phone lines were
cut to many areas — meaning there was no word of death or damage from
many outlying areas.
In the Chilean capital of Santiago, 200 miles (325 kilometers)
northeast of the epicenter, a car dangled from a collapsed overpass,
the national Fine Arts Museum was badly damaged and an apartment
building's two-story parking lot pancaked, smashing about 50 cars whose
alarms rang incessantly.
Experts warned that a tsunami could strike anywhere in the Pacific, and
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. 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.
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, but there were no
immediate reports of major damage.
Bachelet said she had no information on the number of people injured in
the quake. She declared a "state of catastrophe" in central Chile.
"We have had a huge earthquake, with some aftershocks," she said from
an emergency response center. She said Chile has not asked for
assistance from other countries, and urged Chileans not to panic.
"The system is functioning. People should remain calm. We're doing
everything we can with all the forces we have. Any information we will
share immediately," she said.
Powerful aftershocks rattled Chile's coast — 29 of them magnitude 5 or
greater and one reaching magnitude 6.9 — the U.S. Geological Survey
reported.
In Santiago, modern buildings are built to withstand earthquakes, but
many older ones were heavily damaged, including the Nuestra Senora de
la Providencia church, whose bell tower collapsed. A bridge just
outside the capital also collapsed, and at least one car flipped upside
down. Several hospitals were evacuated due to earthquake damage,
Bachelet said.
Santiago's airport will remain closed for at least 24 hours, airport
director Eduardo del Canto said. The passenger terminal suffered major
damage, he told Chilean television in a telephone interview. TV images
show smashed windows, partially collapsed ceilings and pedestrian
walkways destroyed. Santiago's subway was shut as well and
hundreds of buses were trapped
at a terminal by a damaged bridge, Transportation and
Telecommunications Minister told Chilean television. He urged Chileans
to make phone calls or travel only when absolutely necessary.
Candia was visiting his wife's 92-year-old grandmother in Talca when
the quake struck.
"Everything was falling — chests of drawers, everything," he said. "I
was sleeping with my 8-year-old son Diego and I managed to cover his
head with a pillow. It was like major turbulence on an airplane."
In Concepcion, 70 miles (115 kilometers) from the epicenter, nurses and
residents pushed the injured through the streets on stretchers. Others
walked around in a daze wrapped in blankets, some carrying infants in
their arms.
A 15-story building collapsed: "I was on the 8th floor and all of a
sudden I was down here," said Fernando Abarzua, who lived in the
building but somehow escaped with no major injuries.
Abarzua said a relative was still trapped in the rubble six hours after
the quake hit, "but he keeps shouting, saying he's OK."
Concepcion, Chile's second-largest city, is 60 miles (95 kilometers)
from the ski town of Chillan, a gateway to Andean ski resorts that was
destroyed in a 1939 earthquake.
The quake also shook buildings in Argentina's capital of Buenos Aires,
900 miles (1,400 kilometers) away on the Atlantic side of South
America. It was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 1,800 miles
(2,900 kilometers) east of the epicenter...
8.8-magnitude earthquake hits central
Chile
YAHOO
By EVA VERGARA, Associated Press Writer
Feb. 27, 2010
SANTIAGO, Chile – A massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile early
Saturday, killing at least 78 people, collapsing buildings and setting
off a tsunami. A huge wave reached a populated area in the
Robinson
Crusoe Islands, 410 miles (660 kilometers) off the Chilean coast, said
President Michele Bachelet. Tsunami warnings were issued over a
wide
area, including South America, Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand,
Japan, the Philippines, Russia and many Pacific islands.
"It has been a devastating earthquake," Interior Minister Edmundo Perez
Yoma told reporters.
Bachelet said the death toll was at 78 and rising, but officials had no
information on the number of people injured. She declared a "state of
catastrophe" in central Chile.
"We have had a huge earthquake, with some aftershocks," Bachelet said
from an emergency response center. She urged Chileans not to panic.
"Despite this, the system is functioning. People should remain calm.
We're doing everything we can with all the forces we have. Any
information we will share immediately," she said.
In the 2 1/2 hours following the 90-second quake, the U.S. Geological
Survey reported 11 aftershocks, five of them measuring 6.0 or
above.
Bachelet urged people to avoid traveling, since traffic lights are
down, to avoid causing more fatalities. In the capital, Santiago
airport was shut down and will remain closed for at least the next 24
hours, airport director Eduardo del Canto said. The passenger terminal
has suffered major damage, he told Chilean television in a telephone
interview. TV images show smashed windows, partially collapsed ceilings
and pedestrian walkways destroyed.
Chilean television showed images of destroyed buildings and damaged
cars, with rubble-strewn streets. Dozens of people were seen roaming
through the streets, including some wheeling suitcases behind them.
There was a fire burning in one street with people sitting nearby
trying to keep warm.
The quake hit 200 miles (325 kilometers) southwest of Santiago, at a
depth of 22 miles (35 kilometers) at 3:34 a.m. (0634 GMT; 1:34 a.m.
EST), the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
The epicenter was just 70 miles (115 kilometers) from Concepcion,
Chile's second-largest city, where more than 200,000 people live along
the Bio Bio river, and 60 miles from the ski town of Chillan, a gateway
to Andean ski resorts that was destroyed in a 1939 earthquake.
Marco
Vidal, a program director for Grand Circle Travel traveling with a
group of 34 Americans, was on the 19th floor of the Crown Plaza
Santiago hotel when the quake struck.
"All the things start to fall. The lamps, everything, was going on the
floor. And it was moving like from south to north, oscillated. I felt
terrified," he said.
Cynthia Iocono, from Linwood, Pennsylvania, said she first thought the
quake was a train.
"But then I thought, oh, there's no train here. And then the lamps flew
off the dresser and my TV flew off onto the floor and crashed."
"It was scary, but there really wasn't any panic. Everybody kind of
stayed orderly and looked after one another," Iocono said.
In Santiago, modern buildings are built to withstand earthquakes, but
many older ones were heavily damaged, including the Nuestra Senora de
la Providencia church, whose bell tower collapsed. An apartment
building's two-level parking lot also flattened onto the ground floor,
smashing about 50 cars whose alarms and horns rang incessantly. A
bridge just outside the capital also collapsed, and at least one car
flipped upside down.
In the coastal city of Vina del Mar, the earthquake struck just as
people were leaving a disco, Julio Alvarez told Radio Cooperativa in
Santiago. "It was very bad, people were screaming, some people were
running, others appeared paralyzed. I was one of them."
Bachelet said she was declaring a "state of catastrophe" in three
central regions of the country, and that while emergency responders
were waiting for first light to get details, it was evident that damage
was extensive. She said Chile has not asked for assistance from
other
countries.
Several hospitals have been evacuated due to earthquake damage, she
said, and communications with the city of Concepcion remained down. She
planned to tour the effected region as quickly as possible to get a
better idea of the damage.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center called for "urgent action to protect
lives and property" in Hawaii, which is among 53 nations and
territories subject to tsunami warnings.
A huge wave reached a populated area in the Robinson Crusoe Islands,
410 miles (660 kilometers) off the Chilean coast, Bachelet said. There
were no immediate reports of major damage there, she added.
"Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated. It may have been
destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicenter and could also
be a threat to more distant coasts," the warning center said. It did
not expect a tsunami along the west of the U.S. or Canada but was
continuing to monitor the situation.
The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of Chile on
May 22, 1960. The magnitude-9.5 quake killed 1,655 people and left 2
million homeless. The tsunami that it caused killed people in Hawaii,
Japan and the Philippines and caused damage to the west coast of the
United States.
An Earthquake Is Coming (In California) – Is Your House Insured?
By MATTHEW STURDEVANT, The Hartford Courant
10:43 AM EST, February 18, 2010
Haiti's recovery from its Jan. 12 earthquake is a reminder that a
slumbering disaster is waiting to erupt in California.
And while Los Angeles is on the opposite end of the country, a major
earthquake would cause financial ripples felt all the way in New
England, even if the actual tremor didn't wiggle a blade of grass in
Connecticut. The same is true if Chicago was hit by a more serious
earthquake than the one that rattled Illinois last week.
Just this week, the insurance commissioners in New York and Illinois
reminded residents of those states that standard homeowners insurance
does not cover earthquakes.
Even in California, only a small percentage of property owners have
earthquake insurance. Property owners say they don't want to pay the
monthly premiums.
"There is no requirement in California for anybody, at least not from
the state, there's no mandate that you buy coverage," said Julie
Rochman, president and chief executive officer of the Institute for
Business & Home Safety. "And what we have found, and it is really
disappointing, is the level of take-up has stayed in the low teens, or
even 12 percent."
Coverage rates were 30 percent in the mid-1990s after a significant
earthquake shook Southern California in 1994, but have dropped off
since then.
Among the companies that insure homes in California are Travelers Cos.
and The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., Connecticut stalwarts.
State law in California requires those insurers, and all who offer
homeowners insurance there, to offer earthquake coverage to their
customers, too.
But with few taking the coverage, a quake in Southern California would
set off a chain reaction: people would lose their biggest asset, and
banks would struggle from people failing to pay mortgage loans, while
neither the homeowner nor the bank would have collateral for the loans.
Municipalities would scramble to fix shattered roads and public
buildings.
The human toll, of course, would define the catastrophe. But with lack
of widespread coverage, the literal and economic mess would be left to
state and federal emergency agencies. And taxpayers would pick up the
tab.
Seeing this, a state-organized public-private insurance authority in
California is proposing federal legislation that they say will make
earthquake insurance more affordable.
Awaiting The Big One
It's not a matter of if a major quake is coming, but when.
The likelihood is 99.7 percent that a 6.7 percent magnitude earthquake,
or greater, will rip through California in the next 30 years, according
to a 2008 report by the U.S. Geological Survey. The chances of that
quake cracking across greater Los Angeles is 67 percent, and 63 percent
in San Francisco.
Connecticut, on the other hand, has had minor quakes since colonial
times and is "a region of very minor seismic activity, even when
compared to other states in the Northeast region," according to the
USGS. The closest thing Connecticut has to earthquake lore is the
village of Moodus in East Haddam, which derives its name from the
Native American word Morehemoodus, or "place of noises," because of
seismic rumblings there.
The greater threat than a quake in Connecticut is the economic effect
of one in California. For example, a 6.7 magnitude quake struck
Northridge, Calif., on Jan. 17, 1994, causing $20 billion in damage.
"California has grown immensely since then ... if the same earthquake
were to occur today, there would be $130 billion in total damage to
property," said Jayanta Guin, senior vice president for research and
modeling at AIR Worldwide, which models earthquakes and potential loss
for insurers.
The $130 billion estimate includes property and business, but is only a
fraction of the economic loss, which is generally about twice as much.
AIR Worldwide also calculated the annual probability of expensive
earthquakes in California: a 5 percent chance of one that causes $50
billion in damage or more to property and business, a 2 percent chance
of a quake causing $100 billion in damage or more.
If the Northridge quake happened again today, only a small fraction —
up to $20 billion — would be borne by the insurance industry, Guin said.
'Reduced To Zero'
After the Northridge quake, insurers jacked up rates and instituted
strict rules for underwriting homeowners insurance.
Few homeowners could get coverage until the creation of the California
Earthquake Authority in 1996. Insurers apply to offer a policy through
the authority. The authority collects premiums and bears the
responsibility of loss for participating insurers — Travelers and The
Hartford not among them.
It worked relatively well initially, and 30 percent of homeowners
signed up for earthquake coverage the year the authority was formed.
That percentage has dropped off, but the authority still commands about
70 percent of California's earthquake insurance market.
Officials at both Travelers and The Hartford declined to comment for
this story, and would not say how many of their customers in California
have earthquake insurance, or what could be done to increase
participation. Both companies raise millions each year by providing
earthquake coverage on the west coast, and it's not clear whether they
are actively trying to grow that business.
In 2008, Travelers received $16.2 million in written premiums for
earthquake coverage in California (1.4 percent of the state's market
share), and The Hartford raised $14.6 million (1.3 percent) according
to the California Department of Insurance.
Some homeowners mistakenly believe their homeowners policy covers
earthquake insurance, according to the Insurance Information Network of
California. And, unlike other catastrophes, earthquakes don't come
around in seasonal cycles — so people grow less worried about the risk
as more time passes.
The most common reason people opt out is high premiums and high
deductibles, according to insurance experts and state officials.
For example, the cost to cover a $450,000, two-story house built after
1990 in Northridge, Cal., is $1,591 a year, or $133 per month, in
addition to regular homeowners' insurance, according to the earthquake
authority's premium calculator. That assumes a 15 percent deductible —
meaning the insurer wouldn't cover the first $67,500 in damage on that
$450,000 house — and $50,000 in personal property coverage for
furniture and other items in the house.
Instead, people are taking their chances, which is a high-stakes risk,
said Steven Weisbart, senior vice president and chief economist for the
Insurance Information Institute, a trade organization.
"What they're also saying is, 'I'm willing to take the chance my
$300,000 house will be reduced to zero.' For some people that is their
single largest asset. And, of course, if the house is reduced to zero,
they still owe on the mortgage. Now, they're probably going to walk
away from it, declare bankruptcy. This is not a set of good outcomes
here."
A Way To Pay
The California Earthquake Authority has a proposal to lower premiums,
get more people to sign up for coverage and lessen the tax burden when
a big quake hits.
Authority chief executive Glenn Pomeroy said the state spends too much
each year on reinsurance, which is an insurance policy for insurers to
dilute risk. Pomeroy said the authority could stop paying so much in
reinsurance, and reduce premiums to customers, if the federal
government agreed to back the authority's borrowing capacity.
"In essence, paying for the really big one only when we need to,
instead of what we're doing each year which is trying to pay for the
big one each and every year," Pomeroy said.
It would also be a greater incentive to insurers to become members in
the authority, or force them to compete with its less expensive
premiums.
Pomeroy admits that if California mandated earthquake coverage, it
would go a long way in spreading risk and therefore reducing premiums.
But the politics around a mandate would probably sink the idea.
The federal guarantee on debt, in his mind, would lessen the cost to
taxpayers when the big one hits.
"We're trying to get more people protected so there's less need for
that after the fact," Pomeroy said
Information about earthquake risks is available on the Web sites of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, www.fema.gov, and the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS), www.usgs.gov.
Copyright © 2010, The Hartford
Courant
USGS: Magnitude-6.0 quake off Northern
Calif coast
YAHOO
Feb. 4, 2010
PETROLIA, Calif. – A magnitude-6.0 earthquake has struck off the coast
of Northern California's Humboldt County, but officials say there are
no immediate reports of major damage or injury.
The U.S. Geological Survey reports the temblor hit at 12:20 p.m. about
35 miles northwest of the community of Petrolia and nearly 50 miles
west of Eureka. The shaking was felt up to the Oregon border and as far
south as Sonoma County.
County spokesman Phil Smith-Hanes says he felt a rolling sensation, but
the movement didn't feel as severe as the magnitude-6.5 quake that
struck the same area Jan. 9. That quake left more than $40 million of
damage in the area and caused one major injury.
Eureka Fire Chief Eric Smith says crews are checking on structures
damaged in the previous earthquake.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further
information. AP's earlier story is below.
PETROLIA, Calif. (AP) — Officials say a magnitude-6.0 earthquake has
struck off the coast of Northern California's Humboldt County.
The U.S. Geological Survey reports the temblor hit at 12:20 p.m. PST
about 35 miles northwest of the town of Petrolia and nearly 50 miles
west of Eureka.
An employee at the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office says there are no
immediate reports of major injuries or damage.
Humboldt County spokesman Phil Smith-Hanes says he felt a rolling
sensation, but the movement didn't feel as severe as the magnitude-6.5
quake that struck the same area Jan. 9.
Looks
like "Escape From New York" - check out the topo map above.
Agrarian practices, land tenure,
contribute to the present problems.
Editorial Observer: Haiti’s Futile Race
Against the Rain
NYTIMES
By LAWRENCE DOWNES
March
1, 2010
There were floods on Saturday in Les Cayes, in southwestern Haiti. It
rained in Port-au-Prince on Thursday, and again on Saturday and Sunday
night, long enough to slick the streets and make a slurry of the dirt
and concrete dust. Long enough, too, to give a sense of what will
happen across the country in a few weeks, when the real storms start.
Mud will wash down the mountains, and rain will overflow gutters choked
with rubble and waste, turning streets into filthy rivers. Life will
get even more difficult for more than a million people.
New misery and sickness will drench the displaced survivors of the Jan.
12 earthquake — like the 16,000 or so whose tents and flimsy shacks
fill every available inch of the Champ de Mars, the plaza in
Port-au-Prince by the cracked and crumbled National Palace, or the
70,000 who have made a city of the Petionville Club, a nine-hole golf
course on a mountainside above the capital.
The rainy season is the hard deadline against which Haiti’s government
and relief agencies in Port-au-Prince are racing as they try to solve a
paralyzing riddle: how to shelter more than a million displaced people
in a densely crowded country that has no good place to put them.
The plan after the quake was to move people to camps outside the city.
But in a sudden shift last week, officials unveiled a new idea. They
would try to send as many people as possible, tens of thousands, back
to the shattered streets of Port-au-Prince before the rains come. The
prime minister approved it on Friday.
If it sounds insane, insanity is relative in Haiti now. Consider the
choices:
¶Let people stay in filthy, fragile settlements where no one wants
to live, and pray when the hurricanes hit.
¶Build sturdy transitional housing in places like
Jérémie, in the southwest, that can absorb the capital’s
overflow.
¶Encourage people to return to neighborhoods that are clogged with
rubble and will be for years, where the smell of death persists. In
areas like Bel Air and Fort National, near Champ de Mars, people whose
homes still stand are sleeping outside, in fear of aftershocks. They
were still pulling bodies out of Fort National over the weekend,
burning them on the spot.
The first plan is intolerable. The second may come true only several
years and hurricanes from now. The third is merely absurd.
Officials believe that if they clear just enough rubble from certain
areas of the city and improve drainage in flood-prone areas, they can
ease the pressure on the camps and save lives. It makes some sense to
keep people near their neighborhoods, holding on to what remains of
their lives and livelihoods.
But when what remains is nothing, it’s hard to make sense of that idea.
Harder still when you realize that the Haitian government and aid
agencies are still overwhelmed by the crisis. The government hasn’t
even figured out where to put the rubble, and doesn’t seem to know who
is living where.
Official word was that 80 percent of refugees in Champ de Mars were
from Turgeau, where debris-clearing is to begin. I talked with about 40
people throughout the Champ de Mars. They were from Bel Air, Fort
National, St. Martin. Nobody was from Turgeau. Several knew of the plan
and a few had registered for it. But nobody had been told where, when
and how they would leave.
Pascal Benjamin, a 29-year-old huddled with family on the edge of the
Champ de Mars, is from Bel Air. “I heard they were going to find a
place, but they never came to talk to us.”
I spoke with Selondieu Marcelus, his brother, Sony, and nephew,
Ricardo. They were standing beside a yellow tent marked with sardonic
graffiti. “Donnons le pays aux Français,” it said. “Let’s give
the
country to the French.”
Mr. Marcelus once lived on Rue Macajoux in Bel Air. He lost his wife
there. He didn’t know where he would end up. As long as the place has
work, jobs, electricity, I don’t mind, he said. He was unusual. Most of
those I met, in Champ de Mars and in the vast blue-and-orange tarpscape
blanketing the Petionville Club, said they dearly wanted to go home.
It seems certain that this plan for Haiti’s displaced is going to be
ineffective, and that people will suffer and die for lack of anything
better. The only rational plan for Haiti is to disperse the population
of a city that filled to bursting years ago. Making it easier for
people to shoehorn back into Port-au-Prince, looking for jobs and space
that don’t exist, is ludicrous.
It’s a sign of the scale and perplexing nature of this disaster — and
the fix faced by the government that is too slowly confronting it —
that the ludicrous option is the only one available.
A
Deadly Quake in a Seismic Hot Zone
NYTIMES
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
January
26, 2010
To scientists who study seismic hazards in the Caribbean, there was no
surprise in the magnitude 7 earthquake that devastated the Haitian
capital, Port-au-Prince, two weeks ago.
Except, perhaps, in where on the island of Hispaniola it occurred.
“If I had had to make a bet, I would have bet that the first earthquake
would have taken place in the northern Dominican Republic, not Haiti,”
said Eric Calais, a geophysicist at Purdue University who has conducted
research in the area for years.
The fault that ruptured violently on Jan. 12 had been building up
strain since the last major earthquake in Port-au-Prince, 240 years
ago. Dr. Calais and others had warned in 2008 that a quake could occur
along that segment, part of what is called the Enriquillo-Plantain
Garden fault zone, although they could not predict when.
But about 100 miles to the north is a similar fault, the Septentrional,
that has not had a quake in 800 years. Researchers have estimated that
a rupture along that fault — and again, they have no idea when one
might occur — could result in a magnitude 7.5 quake that could cause
severe damage in the Dominican Republic’s second-largest city,
Santiago, and the surrounding Cibao Valley, together home to several
million people.
“You can imagine the strain that has accumulated there,” said Paul
Mann, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas, referring
to the Septentrional fault. “It’s been going on for longer and
accumulating faster. Therefore it’s going to produce a stronger
earthquake.”
The recent quake on the Enriquillo fault and the forecast for the
Septentrional are bleak reminders that the Caribbean is an active
seismic zone, one with many hazards. Major earthquakes have regularly
devastated the region’s cities, including the Jamaican capital,
Kingston, which was destroyed twice in three centuries. An eruption of
Mount Pelée killed 30,000 people in Martinique in the Lesser
Antilles in 1902, and it and other volcanoes are currently active along
that island arc on the Caribbean’s north and eastern reaches.
Earthquakes and landslides along the Puerto Rico Trench, an undersea
fault zone, have the potential to cause tsunamis.
The Haitian quake itself might have added to the risks, researchers
say. Dr. Calais and colleagues and a team including Ross Stein of the
United States Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., have each
calculated the stress changes on the Enriquillo fault that occurred
when a 30-mile segment, centered in Léogâne about 18 miles
west of Port-au-Prince, gave way this month. Although the results are
preliminary, the work shows that stresses have increased just west of
the segment and just east, within three miles of Port-au-Prince.
“This earthquake has increased the risk on other segments of that fault
and perhaps on other faults as well,” Dr. Calais said. “The numbers are
well within the range of stress changes that have triggered earthquakes
on other faults.” But he said the quake probably did not increase the
likelihood of a major tremor on the Septentrional fault.
The Haitian quake has produced a large number of aftershocks, about
three times as many as quakes of similar magnitude in California and
elsewhere, Dr. Stein said. But the intensity and frequency of those
aftershocks have followed the patterns of other earthquakes, he said.
Last Thursday, the geological survey issued a statement estimating that
there was a 3 percent likelihood of a 7 magnitude aftershock in the
next 30 days, and a 25 percent chance of one of magnitude 6. (On
Wednesday, the area experienced a strong aftershock that was initially
rated at 6.1 but was revised to 5.8.)
Of some concern, researchers said, was that none of the aftershocks
have occurred in the area of increased stress nearer to Port-au-Prince,
where ordinarily some might have been expected.
“One possibility is that these are simply calculations, and they may be
wrong,” Dr. Stein said. “The other possibility is, O.K., this fault is
fundamentally locked in some fashion, on pretty much all scales, and
might be capable of popping off something large.”
In its statement, the geological survey cautioned that near the
capital, “the fault still stores sufficient strain to be released as a
large, damaging earthquake during the lifetime of structures built
during the reconstruction effort.”
The region’s seismic activity is due to the movement of the Caribbean
tectonic plate, which can be likened to a finger pushing its way
against two larger plates, the North American and South American. Along
the boundaries, the relative eastward movement of the Caribbean plate,
at the rate of less than an inch a year, creates strike-slip faults,
shallow fissures whose sides slide in relation to one another in an
earthquake.
On the island of Hispaniola, which comprises the Dominican Republic and
Haiti, the Caribbean-North American boundary stresses are expressed in
numerous strike-slip faults, including the Enriquillo and
Septentrional, which are relatively long and roughly parallel.
“It’s a bit unusual to have two parallel faults like that,” said Uri S.
ten Brink, a geophysicist with the geological survey in Woods Hole,
Mass. “It may simply be that for some reason there was already a
weakened area further south.”
Dr. ten Brink’s main area of research is the Puerto Rico Trench, north
of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. This is a
subduction zone — where the North American plate is sliding under the
Caribbean, creating the potential for earthquakes and undersea
landslides that can set off tsunamis.
“We’re trying to see if it’s a similar situation to the Sumatra fault,”
Dr. ten Brink said, referring to the Indonesian subduction zone where a
large earthquake in December 2004 created a tsunami that killed a
quarter of a million people. Scientists have not yet found evidence of
large subduction earthquakes on the Puerto Rican Trench, he said, “but
that’s the $64,000 question.”
Because of the proximity of the trench to American territory, Dr. ten
Brink and others have been able to obtain financing for their studies.
But in other places around the Caribbean, research money has been hard
to come by.
Haiti, for example, has no seismometers, meaning there has been no way
to measure all the small tremors that might help characterize the
Enriquillo fault. Researchers have relied on a network of 35 benchmarks
to measure fault movement. Last week Dr. Calais, Dr. Mann and others
were planning a trip to Haiti to make more accurate measurements for
their stress calculations, and to install devices to monitor the fault
zone continuously for a year or more.
Much of what is known about the seismic activity around Port-au-Prince
has been gleaned from historical accounts of previous quakes. While far
from precise, these accounts suggest a century-long, westward-marching
sequence of quakes along the fault, beginning with one in 1751 in the
Dominican Republic at the fault’s eastern end and including the 1770
earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince.
That raises the possibility that the Jan. 12 earthquake could be the
beginning of a new sequence occurring over decades, with each
successive quake redistributing stresses along the fault. “It’s
certainly possible and it’s really something we’re very concerned
about,” said Carol S. Prentice, a geologist with the geological survey
in Menlo Park. Such sequences have been observed on other faults,
including the North Anatolian in Turkey.
The Septentrional fault’s history is better known, largely because Dr.
Prentice and others have done basic research on a segment in the
Dominican Republic. The study involved digging trenches across the
fault and looking for rupture lines in the sediments. By finding higher
sediments that are unruptured, the dates of quakes can be determined.
Researchers said that more study was needed on the Septentrional and
Enriquillo faults and elsewhere in the Caribbean, and that governments
needed to prepare better for the inevitable.
There are already signs that the Haitian quake has prompted concern
elsewhere in the region, at least among the general population. Dr.
Mann said he was on Jamaican radio programs in the past two weeks to
discuss the hazards.
“They know they’ve been destroyed twice,” he said. “They know their
construction is not the best. All those things have put the whole
country on edge.
“The whole region is fearful.”
Haiti refocuses attention on quake insurance
San Francisco Chronicle
Kathleen Pender
Sunday, January 24, 2010
This month's big earthquake in Eureka, followed by the far more
devastating one in Haiti, should focus attention on the staggering
uninsured losses that will result from the next big shaker in
California unless something is done soon.
Statewide, only 12 percent of homeowners with insurance also have quake
coverage. About 70 percent of that is underwritten by the California
Earthquake Authority, a state-sponsored entity that sells quake
insurance through commercial insurance companies.
The CEA admits that even with its insurance, homeowners could suffer
"substantial uninsured loss." Its policies pay nothing until structural
damage alone exceeds 15 percent of the home's insured value. After
that, they pay for damage to structure and household goods up to the
policy limit. The basic policy pays only $1,500 in living expenses if
you can't stay in your home.
If a large quake erupted on the Hayward Fault, only 6 to 10 percent of
total residential losses and 15 to 20 percent of commercial losses
would be covered by insurance, according to Risk Management Solutions,
a firm that predicts damage from catastrophes.
By comparison, about 53 percent of the economic losses to homes and
businesses following Hurricane Katrina were covered by insurance,
including payouts from the National Flood Insurance Program.
Katrina looks like "a well-covered event" compared with a potential
earthquake in California, says Doug Heller, executive director of
Consumer Watchdog.
Even if you have earthquake insurance, if most of your neighbors don't,
your property value and quality of life could plummet if their homes
are abandoned or fall into disrepair.
One way to minimize damage is to encourage home and building owners to
retrofit their property, says Mary Lou Zoback, a vice president with
Risk Management Solutions. Another is to sell more quake insurance.
Lower premiums
Spreading risk should give insurers more capital from which to pay
claims and lead to lower premiums for consumers - the same way group
health insurance costs less than an individual policy. It also helps
offset adverse selection, which happens when the only people who buy
insurance are those most likely to have claims.
But here's the conundrum: Premiums won't come down until more people
buy policies, and sales won't pick up until premiums come down.
The average CEA premium in California is $707, but prices vary greatly
depending on the home's location and type of construction.
The CEA, along with similar agencies in hurricane-prone states, is
pushing a bill that it says would dramatically lower its costs by
substituting reinsurance with a federal guarantee on bonds sold
following a major disaster. If the legislation passes, the CEA says, it
could lower its premiums by 30 to 40 percent. Or it could lower them by
a smaller percentage but also reduce the deductible, or make other
policy improvements.
In California, companies that sell homeowners insurance are required to
offer earthquake coverage. After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, many
companies stopped or threatened to stop selling new homeowners policies
rather than continue offering quake coverage. In response, the state
created the CEA, which offers bare-bones policies that firms can offer
as an alternative to their own.
Insurers representing 70 percent of the residential market offer CEA
policies. CEA pays these companies a fee but keeps the premiums and
takes the risk itself.
Today, if a major quake occurred, the CEA would pay claims first from
its own capital, then from proceeds of revenue bonds it has sold, then
from reinsurance and finally, if needed, by hitting insurance companies
that do business in the state with a special assessment.
Insurance companies buy reinsurance to pay claims that they can't. The
CEA says it is spending about 40 cents of every premium dollar on
reinsurance.
Under the proposal in Congress - called the Catastrophe Obligation
Guarantee Act - the CEA would cut way back on its reinsurance. Then, if
a major quake occurred and it exhausted all of its other resources -
including the special industry assessment - the authority would sell
bonds guaranteed by the federal government.
To repay the bonds, the CEA would raise premiums, but not as high as
they are today. The bonds would not be an obligation of the state, and
the federal government would step in only if the CEA defaulted.
Limited guarantee
The government could guarantee a total of $5 billion worth of bonds for
all earthquake damage and $20 billion for hurricanes.
"Our modeling is that there is only 1/2 to 1 percent chance we would
need to borrow," says Glenn Pomeroy, the CEA's chief executive.
Heller, the consumer advocate, supports the bill. He believes the CEA,
as a nonprofit state-sponsored entity, would pass along savings to
policyholders.
"The risk for the federal government is that the earthquake authority
can't bring in enough money to pay back the bonds," he says. "But it's
something they would kind of be on the hook for anyway. If California
is falling into the ocean, the federal government will have to do
something about it. If they can shore up private or state coverage of
disasters, the federal government doesn't have to step in as much."
The downside is that homeowners won't directly benefit if their
insurance company doesn't offer a CEA policy. "A flaw in the law"
doesn't let consumers buy a stand-alone policy from CEA, Heller says.
Robert Hunter, director of insurance with the Consumer Federation of
America, says "the concept is good, but the devil is in the details."
If they couldn't compete on price, private companies might have to stop
selling their own quake insurance and offer CEA coverage, which could
impact competition.
"It could have an adverse effect on competition," Hunter says, although
hardly anyone is buying quake insurance in the first place.
The Senate version of the bill, S886, was introduced in April. The
House version, introduced in November, is HR4014. The concept is also
included in a larger bill dealing with catastrophes, HR2555.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a co-sponsor of the Senate bill, says it would
"save Californians up to $150 million per year at a time when family
budgets are stretched thin."
The American Insurance Association, a trade group, opposes it.
Risk potential
"Any time you are setting up a federal backstop for a state-run
insurance mechanism, you are potentially creating a disincentive for
the state to charge risk-based rates and to manage their portfolio of
risk to an appropriate level," says Eric Goldberg, the group's
associate general counsel. In other words, "If you know the government
is there to bail you out, you might take on more risk than is prudent
and keep prices artificially low because it is politically expedient to
do so."
Goldberg doesn't see any benefit to U.S. taxpayers. "Post-Katrina, the
vast majority of federal dollars spent were not covering (uninsured
homeowners). Everyone who wanted flood or windstorm coverage could have
bought it. What you saw in terms of federal expenditures was way more
on infrastructure and temporary housing. That's something the federal
government would do anyway, regardless of insurance."
The two bills have had little action, which is understandable given the
focus on health care and financial regulation.
"What's going on in Haiti is not comparable, but it brings some
awareness that we have disaster issues in America," Heller says. The
problem for the bills' sponsors "is not convincing people it's right,
it's convincing people it's relevant. I'm hopeful this will break
through the consciousness in Washington to give elected officials a
chance to actually get something done."
Net Worth runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail
Kathleen Pender at kpender@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/24/BUOM1BM6B8.DTL
This article appeared on page D - 1
of the San Francisco Chronicle
New magnitude-6.1 quake hits Haiti
Washington
Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Originally
published 07:46 a.m., January 20, 2010, updated 08:05 a.m., January 20,
2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- A powerful aftershock struck Haiti on
Wednesday, shaking buildings and sending screaming people running into
the streets only eight days after the country's capital was devastated
by a major earthquake.
The magnitude-6.1 temblor was the largest aftershock yet to the
apocalyptic Jan. 12 quake that shattered Haiti's capital. It was not
immediately clear if it caused additional damage or injuries.
The new quake hit at 6:03 a.m. (1103 GMT) about 35 miles (56
kilometers) northwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince and 13.7 miles
(22 kilometers) below the surface.
Wails of terror rose from frightened survivors as the earth shuddered
at 6:03 a.m. The U.S. Geologic Survey said the quake was centered about
35 miles (56 kilometers) northwest of Port-au-Prince and was 13.7 miles
(22 kilometers) below the surface.
Last week's magnitude-7 quake killed an estimated 200,000 people in
Haiti, left 250,000 injured and made 1.5 million homeless, according to
the European Union Commission. A massive international aid effort has
been launched, but is struggling with overwhelming logistical problems.
Still, search-and-rescue teams have emerged from the ruins with some
improbable success stories -- including the rescue of 69-year-old
ardent Roman Catholic who said she prayed constantly during her week
under the rubble.
Ena Zizi had been at a church meeting at the residence of Haiti's Roman
Catholic archbishop when the Jan. 12 quake struck, trapping her in
debris. On Tuesday, she was rescued by a Mexican disaster team that was
created in the wake of Mexico City's 1985 earthquake.
Zizi said that after the quake, she spoke back and forth with a vicar
who also was trapped. But after a few days, he fell silent, and she
spent the rest of the time praying and waiting.
"I talked only to my boss, God," she said. "And I didn't need any more
humans."
Doctors who examined Zizi on Tuesday said she was dehydrated and had a
dislocated hip and a broken leg.
Elsewhere in the capital, two women were pulled from a destroyed
university building. And near midnight Tuesday, a smiling and singing
26-year-old Lozama Hotteline was carried to safety from a collapsed
store in the Petionville neighborhood by the French aid group Rescuers
Without Borders.
Crews at the cathedral compound site Tuesday recovered the body of the
archbishop, Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot, who was killed in the Jan. 12
quake.
Authorities said close to 100 people had been pulled from wrecked
buildings by international search-and-rescue teams. Efforts continued,
with dozens of teams sifting through Port-au-Prince's crumbled homes
and buildings for signs of life.
But the good news was overshadowed by the frustrating fact that the
world still can't get enough food and water to the hungry and thirsty.
"We need so much. Food, clothes, we need everything. I don't know whose
responsibility it is, but they need to give us something soon," said
Sophia Eltime, a 29-year-old mother of two who has been living under a
bedsheet with seven members of her extended family.
The World Food Program said more than 250,000 ready-to-eat food rations
had been distributed in Haiti by Tuesday, reaching only a fraction of
the 3 million people thought to be in desperate need.
The WFP said it needs to deliver 100 million ready-to-eat rations in
the next 30 days. Based on pledges from the United States, Italy and
Denmark, it has 16 million in the pipeline.
Even as U.S. troops landed in Seahawk helicopters Tuesday on the
manicured lawn of the ruined National Palace, the colossal efforts to
help Haiti were proving inadequate because of the scale of the disaster
and the limitations of the world's governments. Expectations exceeded
what money, will and military might have been able to achieve.
So far, international relief efforts have been unorganized, disjointed
and insufficient to satisfy the great need. Doctors Without Borders
says a plane carrying urgently needed surgical equipment and drugs has
been turned away five times, even though the agency received advance
authorization to land.
A statement from Partners in Health, co-founded by the deputy U.N.
envoy to Haiti, Dr. Paul Farmer, said the group's medical director
estimated 20,000 people are dying each day who could be saved by
surgery.
"TENS OF THOUSANDS OF EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS NEED EMERGENCY SURGICAL CARE
NOW!!!!!" the group said.
The reasons are varied:
• Both national and international authorities suffered great losses in
the quake, taking out many of the leaders best suited to organize a
response.
• Woefully inadequate infrastructure and a near-complete failure in
telephone and Internet communications complicate efforts to reach
millions of people forced from homes turned into piles of rubble.
• Fears of looting and violence keep aid groups and governments from
moving as quickly as they'd like.
• Pre-existing poverty and malnutrition put some at risk even before
the quake hit.
Governments have pledged nearly $1 billion in aid, and thousands of
tons of food and medical supplies have been shipped. But much remains
trapped in warehouses, or diverted to the neighboring Dominican
Republic. The nonfunctioning seaport and impassable roads complicate
efforts to get aid to the people.
Aid is being turned back from the single-runway airport, where the U.S.
military has been criticized by some of poorly prioritizing flights.
The U.S. Air Force said it had raised the facility's daily capacity
from 30 flights before the quake to 180 on Tuesday.
About 2,200 U.S. Marines established a beachhead west of Port-au-Prince
on Tuesday to help speed aid delivery, in addition to 9,000 Army
soldiers already on the ground. Lt. Cmdr. Walter Matthews, a U.S.
military spokesman, said helicopters were ferrying aid from the airport
into Port-au-Prince and the nearby town of Jacmel as fast as they could.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that the military
will send a port-clearing ship with cranes aboard to Port-au-Prince. It
will be used to remove debris that is preventing many larger ships
carrying relief supplies from docking.
The U.N. was sending in reinforcements as well: The Security Council
voted Tuesday to add 2,000 peacekeepers to the 7,000 already in Haiti,
and 1,500 more police to the 2,100-strong international force.
"The floodgates for aid are starting to open," Matthews said at the
airport. "In the first few days, you're limited by manpower, but we're
starting to bring people in."
The WFP's Alain Jaffre said the U.N. agency was starting to find its
stride after distribution problems, and hoped to help 100,000 people by
Wednesday.
Hanging over the entire effort was an overwhelming fear among relief
officials that Haitians' desperation would boil over into violence.
"We've very concerned about the level of security we need around our
people when we're doing distributions," said Graham Tardif, who heads
disaster-relief efforts for the charity World Vision. The U.N., the
U.S. government and other organizations echoed such fears.
Occasionally, those fears have been borne out. Looters rampaged through
part of downtown Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, just four blocks from where
U.S. troops landed at the presidential palace.
Hundreds of looters fought over bolts of cloth and other goods with
broken bottles and clubs.
New Web-based
relief tools emerging to help Haiti
YAHOO
By FRANK BAJAK, AP Technology Writer
January 19, 2010
Hundreds of tech volunteers spurred
to action by Haiti's killer quake are adding a new dimension to
disaster relief, developing new tools and services for first responders
and the public in an unprecedented effort.
"It really is amazing the change in
the way crisis response can be done now," said Noel Dickover, a
Washington, D.C.-based organizer of the CrisisCamp tech volunteer
movement, which is central to the Haiti effort. "Developers, crisis
mappers and even Internet-savvy folks can actually make a difference."
Volunteers have built and refined
software for tracking missing people, mapping the disaster area and
enabling urgent cell phone text messaging. Organizations including the
International Red Cross and the U.S. Federal Emergency Management
Agency have put the systems to use.
Tim Schwartz, a 28-year-old artist
and programmer in San Diego, feared that with an array of
social-networking sites, crucial information about Haitian quake
victims would "go everywhere on the Internet and it would be very hard
to actually find people — and get back to their loved ones," he said.
So Schwartz quickly e-mailed "all the developers I'd ever worked with."
In a few hours, he and 10 others had
built http://www.haitianquake.com, an online lost-and-found to help
Haitians in and out of the country locate missing relatives.
The database, which anyone can
update, was online less than 24 hours after the quake struck, with more
than 6,000 entries because Schwartz and his colleagues wrote an
"scraper" that gathered data from a Red Cross site.
The New York Times, Miami Herald,
CNN and others launched similar efforts. And two days later, Google had
a similar tool running, PersonFinder, that the State Department
promoted on its own Web site and Twitter. PersonFinder grew out of
missing-persons technology developed after Hurricane Katrina ravaged
New Orleans in 2005.
Christopher Csikszentmihalyi,
director of the Center for Future Civic Media at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, advocated online for consolidating all such
tools into the Google version so the information wouldn't be stuck in
competing projects.
He considers PersonFinder, which can
be embedded in any Web site and as of Tuesday had more than 32,000
records, a triumph because it "greatly increases the chances that
Haitians in Haiti and abroad will be able to find each other."
Schwartz agreed and folded his
database into PersonFinder, which he thinks will become "THE
application for missing people for this disaster and all disasters in
the future."
The site has received several
hundred thousand visits, said Google spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo. She
had no data on how many people had found loved ones using the tool.
Another volunteer project forged in
the quake's aftermath is a cell phone text-messaging system that has
helped the Red Cross and other relief groups dispatch rescuers, food
and water. Haitians needing help can send free text messages from
phones on the nation's Digicel service to the number 4636.
"At least 20 people so far have been
able to use this program to tell their families in the U.S. that
they're OK," said Katie Stanton, a former Google employee working in
the State Department's Office of Innovation.
The text messages are translated,
categorized and "geotagged" by volunteers including Haitian-American
members of the New York City-based Service Employees International
Union. The service is being promoted on Haitian radio stations and the
service has handled more than 1,000 messages since it began Saturday,
said Josh Nesbit, a co-creator. He put together a similar system for
hospitals in Malawi, Africa, while at Stanford University.
In another collaborative effort, the
OpenStreetMap "crisis mapping" project, volunteers layer
up-to-the-minute data (such as the location of new field hospitals and
downed bridges) onto post-quake satellite imagery that companies
including GeoEye and DigitalGlobe have made freely available. The
digital cartography — informed by everything from Twitter feeds to
eyewitness reports — has helped aid workers speed food, water and
medicine to where it's needed most.
One Colombian rescue team leader
uploaded the maps to his crew's portable GPS units before the team
arrived on the scene last week, developers said. Another volunteer,
Talbot Brooks of Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss., converts
the maps into letter-sized documents that aid workers have been
printing out before traveling to the quake zone.
Internet social networking tools
have helped volunteers organize intense work sessions.
CrisisCamp drew some 400 people in
six cities including Washington, London and Mountain View, Calif., over
the weekend to meet-ups where they devised, built and helped refine
tools. Among them: a basic Creole-English dictionary for the iPhone
that was delivered to Apple on Monday night for its approval.
"There was no break for lunch and
people barely used the bathroom," said Clay Johnson of the Sunlight
Foundation, the government transparency-promoting tech nonprofit that
hosted the 130 participants in the Washington session. U.N., State
Department and World Bank representatives attended.
Johnson also is the coordinator for
"We Have, We Need," a project that was hatched in the CrisisCamp
session and is about to be launched. It seeks to pair private-sector
offers with needs identified by aid workers. For example, a Haitian
Internet provider needs networking engineers to restore connectivity.
Any volunteers willing to spend a few weeks in Port-au-Prince?
More CrisisCamps are planned this
weekend in Northern California, Miami, Atlanta, Washington, Atlanta,
Brooklyn, N.Y., Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles.
A week after the quake, many tech
relief volunteers are still working full steam.
"These people have been awake for
days," Csikszentmihalyi said.
HAITI HISTORY AND BACKGROUNDER HERE
MORE
PHOTOS HERE
This photograph provided by Médecins Sans Frontières
shows wounded
people gathered at the office of the medical charity in Port-au-Prince,
Haiti on Wednesday. Same photo source as used by New London DAY
Norwich reporter with direct story below.
Page last updated at 18:43
GMT, Saturday, 16 January 2010
US presidents launch Haiti quake funds appeal; US
President Barack Obama: 'Historic effort needed in Haiti'
President Barack Obama has appealed to
US citizens to contribute funds to help Haiti after the devastating
quake that has killed tens of thousands of people.
The US was
launching "one of the largest relief efforts in its history", he said,
flanked by former Presidents George W Bush and Bill Clinton.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is heading for Haiti to
back aid efforts and offer "unwavering support".
Relief has been arriving, but little has moved beyond the
jammed airport.
There are reports of gangs and looting in the capital,
Port-au-Prince.
There
is little police presence in the capital - a BBC correspondent saw only
six police officers throughout the day on Friday - although some
Brazilian UN peacekeepers are patrolling the streets.
 |
AT THE SCENE
Matt Frei, BBC News, Port-au-Prince
There
are quite a few diggers in town moving debris, sometimes even bodies.
But if you reach a pile of rubble, and there's any evidence of life,
what you have to do is pick that pile of rubble brick by brick, glass
shard by glass shard.
The story that we've heard time and time again is that
of lack of bright lights to continue working through the night.
A
part of the tarmac looked like a hospital ward on Friday with patients
on drips waiting to be moved out. But that is a tiny proportion.
At
an outdoor hospital in town there was not a single doctor or nurse, and
people were dying in front of our eyes unnecessarily.
If you
have lost a leg or foot, and you are lying out in the open at these
extraordinary temperatures without water, and medicine, often without
any shade for four days, you are not going to live very long.
There
is no reason why some of the dozens of doctors who have arrived in the
past two days should not go there to treat these people. The roads are
clear and it's only a 20-minute drive from the airport.
|
On Saturday morning, a magnitude-4.5 aftershock struck close
to
Haiti's capital, the US Geological Survey said, forcing people to flee
buildings.
According to Haitian Interior Minister Paul Antoine
Bien-Aime, 50,000 bodies have been collected, but the total number of
dead could be "between 100,000 and 200,000".
Damage to the seaport, roads and other infrastructure has
prevented the speedy distribution of supplies.
President Barack Obama met George W Bush and Bill Clinton in
Washington to seek their support.
After the talks, Mr Obama said the two men would lead the US
fundraising efforts through the Bush-Clinton Haiti Fund.
"At
this moment we're moving forward with one of the largest relief efforts
in our history to save lives and deliver relief that averts an even
larger catastrophe," Mr Obama said.
"The two leaders with me today will ensure that this is
matched by a historic effort that extends beyond our government."
Mr
Bush urged Americans to send "cash", and Mr Clinton said Haitians "can
escape their history and built a better future if we do our part".
Mrs Clinton was due in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, but her
arrival has been delayed.
In
Geneva, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of
Humanitarian Affairs said aid workers were dealing with a disaster
"like no other" in UN memory because the country had been
"decapitated".
"Government buildings have collapsed and we do not even have
the support of the local infrastructure," Elisabeth Byrs said.
Ms Byrs said the situation was even worse than the
devastation wrought by the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia's Aceh province.
"It's worse than the Indonesian earthquake where at least we
could get the support of some local authorities," she said.
The UN has launched an appeal for $562m (£346m),
intended to help three million people for six months.
A
total of about $360m has been pledged so far for the relief effort, but
only part of this sum will be included in the emergency appeal.
US authorities have taken temporary control
of the airport to help distribute aid supplies more quickly.
A pregnant nurse was pulled from the rubble
after people heard her screams
Aid may be arriving in huge quantities but there is little of
it to
be seen in Port-au-Prince, says the BBC's Nick Davies in the capital.
And many people continue to leave the city, in search of
food, water and medicine.
The
UN is reporting a rise in the number of people trying to cross into the
neighbouring Dominican Republic, and an influx into Haiti's northern
cities.
The US has already sent an aircraft carrier, the USS
Carl Vinson, to Haiti and the USS Bataan, carrying a marine
expeditionary unit, is on its way.
|
Satellite and close-up
images of Port-au-Prince devastation
|
A hospital ship and more helicopters are due to be sent in
the
coming days, carrying more troops and marines, with the total number of
US troops to rise to between 9,000 and 10,000.
Aid groups say it is a race against time to find any more
trapped survivors.
Plane-loads
of rescuers and relief supplies have arrived or are due from the UK,
China, the EU, Canada, Russia and Latin American nations.
The UN said about 300,000 people had been made homeless.
Meanwhile,
details are emerging about the extent of the damage beyond
Port-au-Prince. Up to 90% of the buildings have been damaged in
Leogane, a town about 19km (18 miles) to the west, the UN said.
"According
to the local police, between 5,000 to 10,000 people have been killed
and most bodies are still in the collapsed buildings," Elisabeth Byrs
said.
Haiti
aid flow grows; feuds over
reaching victims
YAHOO
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU and MIKE MELIA, Associated Press Writers
January 16, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Hungry, haggard survivors clamored for food and
water Saturday as donors squabbled over how to get aid into Haiti and
rescuers waged an increasingly improbable battle to free the dying
before they become the dead.
Haiti's government alone has already recovered 20,000 bodies — not
counting those recovered by independent agencies or relatives
themselves, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated
Press. He said a final toll of 100,000 dead would "seem to be the
minimum."
There were growing signs that foreign aid and rescue workers were
getting to the people most in need — even those buried deep beneath
collapsed buildings — while others struggled to cope with the countless
bodies still left on the streets.
Crowds of Haitians thronged around foreign workers shoveling through
piles of wreckage at shattered buildings throughout the city, using
sniffer dogs, shovels and in some cases heavy earth-moving equipment.
Searchers poked a camera on a wire thorough a hole at the collapsed
Hotel Montana and spotted three people who were still alive, and they
heard the voice of a woman speaking French, said Ecuadorian Red Cross
worker David Betancourt.
In Washington, President Barack Obama joined with his predecessors
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to appeal for donations to help Haiti
and he sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Caribbean
nation.
"We stand united with the people of Haiti, who have shown such
incredible resilience, and we will help them to recover and to
rebuild," Obama vowed.
Bellerive said an estimated 300,000 people are living on the streets in
port-au-Prince and "Getting them water, and food, and a shelter is our
top priority."
The U.S. military operating Haiti's damaged main airport said it can
now handle 90 flights a day, but that wasn't enough to cope with all
the planes sent by foreign donors and governments circling overhead in
hopes of winning one of the few spots available on the tarmac.
France's Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet told The Associated Press
that he had filed an official complaint to the U.S. government after
two French planes, one carrying a field hospital, were denied
permission to land.
A plane carrying the prime ministers of two Caribbean nations also was
forced to turn back late Friday due to a lack of space at the airport,
the Caricom trade bloc announced.
Haitian President Rene Preval urged donors to avoid arguments.
"This is an extremely difficult situation. We must keep our cool to do
coordination and not to throw accusations at each other," Preval said
after emerging from a meeting with donor groups and nations at a
dilapidated police station that serves as his temporary headquarters.
With the National Palace and many ministries destroyed, Preval meets
with ministers in the open air in a circle of plastic chairs.
On a street in the heavily damaged downtown area, the spade of a
massive bulldozer quickly filled up with dead bodies headed for a
morgue and immediate burial. Haiti's Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive
told AP that disposing of bodies had become crucial.
"Sadly, we have to bring everybody to mass graves because we are racing
against a possible epidemic," told AP. Haitians already have been
piling bodies and burning them.
Many in the city have painted toothpaste around their nostrils and beg
passers-by for surgical masks to cut the smell.
The U.S. Southern Command said it now has 24 helicopters flying relief
missions — many from warships off the coast — with 4,200 military
personnel involved and 6,300 more due by Monday.
But with aid still scarce in many areas, there were scattered signs
that the desperate — or the criminal — were taking things into their
own hands.
A water delivery truck driver said he was attacked in one of the city's
slums. There were reports of isolated looting as young men walked
through downtown with machetes, and robbers reportedly shot one man
whose body was left on the street.
An AP photographer saw one looter haul a corpse from a coffin at a city
cemetery and then drive away with the box.
"I don't know how much longer we can hold out," said Dee Leahy, a lay
missionary from St. Louis, Missouri, who was working with nuns handing
out provisions from their small stockpile. "We need food, we need
medical supplies, we need medicine, we need vitamins and we need
painkillers. And we need it urgently."
U.N. spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said the disaster is the most
challenging the U.N. has faced in terms of resources needed. She said
there was so much damage to local government and infrastructure that is
is harder for relief agencies to work than it was after the Asian
tsuanami of 2004.
The Red Cross estimates 45,000 to 50,000 people were killed in
Tuesday's magnitude-7.0 earthquake. The Pan American Health
Organization estimated the toll at 50,000 to 100,000. A third of
Haiti's 9 million people may be in need of aid.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the World Food Program was
providing high-energy biscuits and ready-to-eat meals to around 8,000
people "several times a day."
"Obviously, that is only a drop in the bucket in the face of the
massive need, but the agency will be scaling up to feed approximately 1
million people within 15 days and 2 million people within a month," he
said.
Troops from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division began setting up an
aid station on a golf course in an affluent part of the city, but they
had no supplies to hand out yet and Capt. John Hartsock said it would
be another two days before they could start distributing food and water.
"We've got to wait until we've got enough established so we can hand it
out in a civilized fashion," Hartsock said.
Many, though, cannot wait.
A violent scuffle broke out among several hundred people jostling to be
first in line as three U.S. military helicopters were landing at the
golf course with food and water.
The chopper pilots decided it was too dangerous to remain and took off
off with their precious cargo still inside.'
"People are so desperate for food that they are going crazy," said
Henry Ounche, an accountant who was among the crowd.
Other efforts to get aid to the victims has been slowed by blocked
roads, congestion at the airport, limited equipment and fear of
violence or disturbances. U.N. peacekeepers warned aid convoys to add
security to uard against looting.
International Red Cross spokesman Paul Conneally said a convoy with a
field hospital and medical workers was heading into Haiti by road
Saturday from the Dominican Republic because "it's not possible to fly
anything into Port-au-Prince right now. The airport is completely
congested."
The World Health Organization has said eight hospitals in
Port-au-Prince were destroyed or damaged, severely curtailing treatment
available for the injured.
Hundreds of Haitians fled east toward the Dominican Republic for care.
More than 300 earthquake victims were crammed into a 30-bed hospital in
the border town of Jimani, many sharing mattresses along crowded
corridors, theiir arms drinking up IV fluids.
"The only thing left is to pray for God to save my son," said a weeping
Jean-Paul Dieudone, who came to the border seeking help for his
6-year-old son after his wife and other son died in the earthquake.
Officials said damage to the seaport also is a problem for bringing in
aid. The arrival Friday of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson helped
immediately by taking pressure off the airport. Within hours, an 82nd
Airborne Division rapid response unit was handing out food, water and
medical supplies from two cargo pallets outside the airport.
Others tried to help in smaller ways.
Milero Cedamou, the 33-year-old owner of a small water delivery
company, twice drove his small tanker truck to a tent camp where
thousands of homeless people are living. Hundreds clustered around to
fill their plastic buckets.
"This is a crisis of unspeakable magnitude; it's normal for every
Haitian to help," Cedamou said. "This is not charity."
Medical teams from a dozen other nations set up makeshift hospitals to
tend to the critically injured — who were still appearing.
"We have the hope we can find more people," said Chilean Maj. Rodrigo
Vasquez, whose teams were trying to save those trapped at the Hotel
Montana. But others weren't as hopeful. One Haitian woman sitting
outside of the destroyed hotel spoke on her cell phone and sobbed. "No
one's alive in there," she said in Creole.
And soon, it will be too late in any case.
"Beyond three or four days without water, they'll be pretty ill," said
Dr. Michael VanRooyen of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative in Boston.
"Around three days would be where you would see people start to
succumb."
Still, there were improbable triumphs.
"It's a miracle," said Anne-Marie Morel, raising her arms to the sky
after a neighbor was found alive in the rubble of a home. If one person
could be resuscitated from the utter destruction of this street, there
remained hope that many other could still be found alive, she said.
"Nonsense, there is no God and no miracle," shouted back Remi Polevard,
another neighbor, who said his five children were somewhere under the
nearby debris.
"How could he do this to us?" Polevard yelled.
Haiti
Chief Says Thousands May Be Dead
By SIMON ROMERO and MARC LACEY
January 14, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Dawn brought horrible scenes to light in
Haiti’s capital on Wednesday: piles of disintegrated concrete, with
limbs sticking out and muffled cries emanating from deep inside;
wounded people staggering through the streets; and bodies littering the
landscape.
Huge swaths of Port-au-Prince lay in ruins, and thousands of people
were feared dead in the rubble of government buildings, foreign aid
headquarters and shantytowns that collapsed a day earlier in a powerful
earthquake.
The Haitian president, René Préval, told The Miami Herald
that the toll
was “unimaginable” and estimated that thousands had died. Among those
feared dead were the chief of the United Nations mission in Haiti and
Msgr. Joseph Serge Miot, the archbishop of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
“Parliament has collapsed,” Mr. Préval was quoted as saying.
“The tax
office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed.
There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.”
“All of the hospitals are packed with people,” he added. “It is a
catastrophe.”
Haiti sits on a large fault that has caused catastrophic quakes in the
past, but this one was described as among the most powerful to hit the
region. The earthquake was the worst in the region in more than 200
years and left the country in a shambles, without electricity or phone
service, tangling efforts to provide relief to an estimated 3 million
people who the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies said had been affected by the quake.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said Haiti was now
facing a “major humanitarian emergency” that would require a concerted
international response.
President Obama promised that Haiti would have the “unwavering support”
of the United States.
Mr. Obama said United States aid agencies were moving swiftly to get
help to Haiti and that search-and-rescue teams were already en route.
He described the reports of destruction as “truly heart-wrenching,”
made more cruel given Haiti’s long-troubled circumstances.Mr. Obama did
not make a specific aid pledge, and administration officials said they
were still trying to figure out what the island needed. But he urged
Americans to dig into their pockets and to go to the White House’s Web
site, www.whitehouse.gov, to find ways to donate money.
“This is a time when we are reminded of the common humanity that we all
share,” Mr. Obama said, speaking in the White House diplomatic
reception room with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at his side.
Aid agencies said they would open their storehouses of food and water
inside Haiti, and the World Food Program was flying in nearly 100 tons
of ready-to-eat meals and high-energy biscuits from El Salvador. The
United Nations said it was freeing up $10 million in emergency relief
funds, the European Union pledged $4.4 million, and groups like Doctors
Without Borders were setting up clinics in tents and open-air triage
centers to treat the injured. But some aid groups with offices in
Haiti’s capital were also busy searching for their own dead and missing.
Five workers with the United Nations mission in Haiti were killed and
more than 100 more missing after the office’s headquarters collapsed in
one of the deadliest single days for United Nations employees. The
Tunisian head of the group’s Haitian mission, Hedi Annabi, and his
deputy were among the missing, said Alain LeRoy, the United Nations
peacekeeping chief.
Earlier Wednesday, the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said
in radio interviews that Mr. Annabi had been killed in the collapse.
The Brazilian Army, which has one of the largest peacekeeping presences
in Haiti, said that four of its soldiers had been killed in the quake
and five had been injured. In addition to the human toll, the heavy
damage sustained by Haiti’s presidential palace and the United Nations
headquarters were a blow to the two major symbols of authority in the
country.
“The palace was like something out of a fairy tale in a country that
had nothing,” said Johanna Mendelson Forman, a former adviser to the
United Nations mission, who now works at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington. “It had red carpets and gold
ropes. It was a symbol of one of the few institutions that works there,
and that’s the presidency.”
On Wednesday the palace looked like a collapsed wedding cake, with its
column-lined facade crumpled and its white domed roof caving in.
Paul McPhun, operations manager for Doctors Without Borders, described
scenes of chaos.
When staff members tried to travel by car “they were mobbed by crowds
of people,” Mr. McPhun said. “They just want help, and anybody with a
car is better off than they are.”
He said that the main hospitals in Port-au-Prince had either collapsed
or been abandoned because they were too structurally precarious.
“Our teams are managing what comes to them, but already we’re getting
overwhelmed,” he said. “We’re struggling to manage. It’s a very chaotic
situation. Information for us is very difficult to gather.”
Aid workers and journalists in the neighboring Dominican Republic
swarmed the airport in Santo Domingo, hoping to catch a few emergency
flights into Haiti, and a spokesman for the United Nations humanitarian
office said aid would be sent into the country on commercial flights.
The United Nations said the Port-au-Prince airport was open, but that
the main road connecting it to the capital remained impassable. Other
roads had been torn apart in the quake or were blocked by debris,
making it more difficult to transport food, fresh water and first aid
supplies, and hospitals were overwhelmed by the injured. In a place
where there are constant blackouts, the electricity remained out during
the early hours Wednesday, and telephones were not working.
More than 30 significant aftershocks of a 4.5 magnitude or higher
rattled Haiti through the night and into the early morning, according
to Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist with the United States Geological
Survey. “We’ve seen a lot of shaking still happening,” she said.
Bob Poff, a Salvation Army official, said in a written account posted
on the Salvation Army’s Web site how he had loaded injured victims —
“older, scared, bleeding and terrified” — into the back of his truck
and set off in search of help. In two hours, he managed to travel less
than a mile, he said.
The account described how Mr. Poff and hundreds of neighbors spent the
night outside, in the playground near a children’s home run by the
group. Every tremor sent ripples of fear through the survivors,
providing “another reminder that we are not yet finished with this
calamity,” he wrote.
“And when it comes, all of the people cry out and the children are
terrified,” he wrote.
Louise Ivers, the clinical director of the aid group Partners in
Health, said in an e-mail to her colleagues: “Port-au-Prince is
devastated, lot of deaths. SOS. SOS . . . Temporary field hospital by
us at UNDP needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us.”
A hospital collapsed in Pétionville, a hillside district in
Port-au-Prince that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians, a
videographer for The Associated Press said. Photos from Haiti on
Wednesday showed a hillside scraped nearly bare of its houses, which
had tumbled into the ravine below.
Tequila Minsky, a photographer who was in Port-au-Prince, said a wall
at the front of the Hotel Oloffson had fallen, killing a passer-by. A
number of nearby buildings had crumbled, trapping people, she said, and
a Unibank bank building was badly damaged. People were screaming.
“It was general mayhem,” Ms. Minsky said.
The earthquake struck just before 5 p.m. about 10 miles southwest of
Port-au-Prince, the United States Geological Survey said.
Haiti’s many man-made woes — its dire poverty, political infighting and
proclivity for insurrection — have been exacerbated repeatedly by
natural disasters. At the end of 2008, four hurricanes flooded whole
towns, knocked out bridges and left a destitute population in even more
desperate conditions.
Simon Romero reported from
Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and Marc Lacey
from Mexico City. Reporting was contributed by Ginger Thompson and
Brian Knowlton from Washington, Elisabeth Malkin from Mexico City, Neil
MacFarquhar from New York and Mery Galanternick from Rio de Janeiro.
AP Photo/Medecins Sans
Frontieres, Stefano Zannini.
This
photo provided by Medecins Sans Frontieres shows wounded people
gathered at the office of Medecins Sans Frontieres in Port-au-Prince,
Haiti Wednesday Jan. 13, 2010. Haitians piled bodies along the
devastated streets of their capital Wednesday after the strongest
earthquake hit the poor Caribbean nation in more than 200 years crushed
thousands of structures, from schools and shacks to the National Palace
and the U.N. peacekeeping headquarters.
Norwich
Haitian ministry begins relief efforts; 2 Conn. residents rescued
DAY
Elissa Bass
Article published Jan 13, 2010
Despite having its mission
house completely destroyed in Tuesday's earthquake, the Diocese of
Norwich Haitian Ministries has no intention of giving up its commitment
to the people of Haiti, a spokeswoman said this morning.
"We are committed to be with
the Haitian people," said Emily Smack, the executive director for the
Norwich Haitian Ministries. "One way or another we will be in Haiti."
The two Connecticut residents
who were trapped for 10 hours in the collapsed mission house near
Port-au-Prince were pulled out alive early this morning. Jillian Thorp of Old Saybrook, the
mission house's acting director, and Charles Dietsch of Southbury, were
both rescued, according to Smack. Smack said the ministry will begin
organizing fund raising today. She said cash needs to be raised so that
food and medicine can be purchased in the Dominican Republic and
brought into Haiti.
"The airport is closed down
and mobilizing and trying to containerize (donated items) ... by the
time we get into Haiti all that would be of little use," Smack said.
"They need medicine, food and shelter now."
Smack said now that the
missionaries have been rescued, "our next thing to do is find out
what's happened to our partners, the orphanages we support and the
schoolchildren and the feeding programs. All of those take place in
extremely adverse areas, so it will be a while before the dust settles."
Smack said the ministry's
three-story building was totally destroyed, and everyone is "camping
out in the driveway right now." She said the two injured Americans will
be evacuated to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince today.
"I talked to Jill just a
little while ago," Smack said this morning. Thorp and Dietsch were in
the basement of the building when the earthquake hit.
"A male guard came and heard
them banging on the metal and concrete and he went and got the others
and they dug by hand," she said.
"We have four Haitian staff
men who, once they knew their families were OK, they came back to that
mission house to dig our staff out," Smack said.
Jillian Thorp's husband Frank
is also in Haiti. He was about 100 miles away when the earthquake hit,
Smack said, which is about a six-hour drive.
"He immediately hopped in a
car and caught up with a group of medical students and brought them to
the mission house," Smack said. "The miracle is, just as they were
reaching Jill (in the rubble), her husband got there and he was
actually the person who pulled her out."
Smack said Jillian Thorp
"sounded remarkably good. She is badly bruised, cut up, lots of muscle
pulls, and Chuck may have broken a leg and possibly some ribs."
A third person in the house at the
time of the collapse, a Haitian housekeeper named Lanite, was pulled
out alive but is in critical condition. Ministry spokeswoman Kyn Tolson
said Lanite may have lost both her legs. Smack said another Haitian employee at
the mission, the daytime guard, remains unaccounted for.
The Norwich-based ministry
workers are able to communicate with those on the island through the
Internet, on Skype. Regular communication with Haiti is not
possible. Smack said
she has been working the phones and been on Skype non-stop since she
first got word of the catastrophe at 5 p.m., Tuesday. She went to New
York City first thing this morning to be interviewed on the network
news shows about the dramatic rescue of Thorp and Dietsch. While they are working to get help to the
island, it is an emotional time for the local ministry workers.
"We were just saying the
other day that last year was so horrible (for Haiti), they had those
five hurricanes right in a row, bam, bam, bam, and it was just
devastating," Smack said, her voice welling with emotion. "Then we had
the school collapse.
"This year, things seemed
calm, road construction had started, the government was stable. And
it's just like, if you let your guard down, I just don't know what to
say ... They are not equipped to help, there is no major infrastructure
to help these people. It's discouraging on one hand, but we have to
stand with them, they are our brothers and sisters."
ivilians cannot get into
Haiti, as the airport tower was destroyed and the airport is closed.
More Connecticut residents were scheduled to go to Haiti next week and
in early February with the Norwich mission. Smack said those plans are
on hold.
"One thing we don't want to
do is add to the confusion," she said. "We want to be helpful, not add
to the chaos."
Haiti earthquake: Port-au-Prince
rocked by 7.0 quake; buildings collapse, hundreds feared dead
By Helen Kennedy, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Originally Published:Tuesday, January 12th 2010, 5:29 PM
Updated: Wednesday, January 13th 2010, 2:05 AM
A devastating quake left Haiti's capital in ruins, knocking
down hospitals, high-rises, and churches Tuesday - and leveling the
presidential palace...
The extent of the horror was only beginning to emerge. Near-complete
power failures left Haiti, an impoverished island nation of 8million,
largely cut off from the world. Efforts to rescue the injured and
trapped were described as desperate. People were clawing at the debris
with their bare hands, trying to save loved ones, witnesses said.
In the hilly neighborhood of Petionville, where a hospital fell on top
of screaming patients, a visiting U.S. federal official said he saw a
number of homes collapsed into a ravine.
"The sky is just gray with dust," Henry Bahn said. "I just hear a
tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance."
Haitian immigrants in New York City and elsewhere were frantically
trying to contact relatives back home - and having no luck getting
through. The magnitude-7.0 quake hit right near Port-au-Prince at
4:53 p.m. and is believed to be the strongest quake in Haiti in more
than 200 years. Two powerful aftershocks measuring 5.9 and 5.5 soon
followed, further damaging structures weakened by the initial quake.
The quake struck just as Haiti was starting to show the first signs of
recovery from the relentless battering of Hurricanes Fay, Gustav, Hanna
and Ike in 2008, which killed hundreds and left 800,000 people homeless.
Famed Haitian musician Wyclef Jean, who has worked to improve
conditions in his homeland, said he feared what will follow this "human
disaster" - including looting.
"Idle hands will only make this tragedy worse," he warned.
He called on President Obama to quickly send in troops.
"The U.S. military is the only group trained and prepared to offer that
assistance immediately," he said. "The international community must
also rise to the occasion and help."
The UN peacekeeping force of 7,060 troops and 2,091 police, key to
maintaining order in Haiti, is also in crisis. UN officials said their
main security headquarters "sustained serious damage ... and a large
number of personnel remain unaccounted for."
U.S. committed to help
Obama said the United States stands ready to help.
A State Department spokesman, Gordon Duguid, said search and rescue
teams have already been dispatched to the quake-ravaged country.
U.S. Coast Guard officials in Miami have mobilized C-130 aircraft and
cutters from ports in Florida, Virginia and New Hampshire.
"We will be providing both civilian and military disaster relief," said
Secretary of State Clinton. And her husband, former President Bill
Clinton, the UN's special envoy for Haiti, promised his office was
"committed to do whatever we can."
Obama received an update from his national security staff on the dire
situation in Haiti Tuesday night.
"The President told them that he expects an aggressive, coordinated
effort by the U.S. government," said an administration official.
Mobilizing assistance could prove difficult at first as the aid workers
in country, many of them Americans, were also affected - and the main
airport was damaged.
The Haitian Ministries for the Diocese of Norwich, Conn., reported two
of its workers trapped in their Petionville mission house, which
partially collapsed.
The two were identified as the mission's acting director, Jillian
Thorp, and a consultant, Charles Dietsch. Thorp is the daughter-in-law
of retired Rear Adm. Frank Thorp, the Navy's former chief information
officer.
Frank Thorp said she called for help using her cell phone and reported
her leg injured. The phone died at 8 p.m.
Elsewhere, Red Cross spokeswoman Abi Weaver reported trouble reaching
the agency's ground workers.
The local headquarters of Save the Children was also damaged, said Ian
Rodgers, its emergency response adviser, who is in Haiti. "Houses all
around the headquarters are collapsed," he added.
Mayor Bloomberg said the city would collect cash donations.
He lauded the "special, close relationship" between Haiti and New York,
given the 125,000 New Yorkers who hail from that nation.
"New York City stands ready to do all we can to help Haiti, as we have
in the past," he said.
"On behalf of 8.4 million New Yorkers, nou ave'w - we are with you,"
Bloomberg said.
U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Kristin Marano called the quake the
strongest since 1770. In 1946, a magnitude-8.1 quake struck the
Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti,
and also shook Haiti, producing a tsunami that killed 1,790 people.
Haiti was last rocked by a major-magnitude temblor, one measuring 6.7,
in 1984.
Haiti hit by largest earthquake in over 200
years
YAHOO
By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer
January 12, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The strongest earthquake in more than 200 years
rocked Haiti on Tuesday, collapsing a hospital where people screamed
for help and heavily damaging the National Palace, U.N. peacekeeper
headquarters and other buildings. U.S. officials reported bodies in the
streets and an aid official described "total disaster and chaos."
United Nations officials said a large number of U.N. personnel were
unaccounted for.
Communications were widely disrupted, making it impossible to get a
full picture of damage as powerful aftershocks shook a desperately poor
country where many buildings are flimsy. Electricity was out in some
places.
Karel Zelenka, a Catholic Relief Services representative in
Port-au-Prince, told U.S. colleagues before phone service failed that
"there must be thousands of people dead," according to a spokeswoman
for the aid group, Sara Fajardo.
"He reported that it was just total disaster and chaos, that there were
clouds of dust surrounding Port-au-Prince," Fajardo said from the
group's offices in Maryland.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington that embassy
personnel were "literally in the dark" after power failed.
"They reported structures down. They reported a lot of walls down. They
did see a number of bodies in the street and on the sidewalk that had
been hit by debris. So clearly, there's going to be serious loss of
life in this," he said.
Alain Le Roy, the U.N. peacekeeping chief in New York, said late
Tuesday that the headquarters of the 9,000-member Haiti peacekeeping
mission and other U.N. installations were seriously damaged.
"Contacts with the U.N. on the ground have been severely hampered," Le
Roy said in a statement, adding: "For the moment, a large number of
personnel remain unaccounted for."
Felix Augustin, Haiti's consul general in New York, said a portion of
the National Palace had disintegrated.
"Buildings collapsed all over the place," he said. "We have lives that
are destroyed. ... It will take at least two or three days for people
to know what's going on."
An Associated Press videographer saw the wrecked hospital in
Petionville, a hillside Port-au-Prince district that is home to many
diplomats and wealthy Haitians, as well as many poor people. Elsewhere
in the capital, a U.S. government official reported seeing houses that
had tumbled into a ravine.
Kenson Calixte of Boston spoke to an uncle and cousin in Port-au-Prince
shortly after the earthquake by phone. He could hear screaming in the
background as his relatives described the frantic scene in the streets.
His uncle told him that a small hotel near their home had collapsed,
with people inside.
"They told me it was total chaos, a lot of devastation," he said. More
than four hours later, he still was not able to get them back on the
phone for an update.
Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., Raymond Joseph, said from his
Washington office that he spoke to President Rene Preval's chief of
staff, Fritz Longchamp, just after the quake hit. He said Longchamp
told him that "buildings were crumbling right and left" near the
national palace. He too had not been able to get through by phone to
Haiti since.
With phones down, some of the only communication came from social media
such as Twitter. Richard Morse, a well-known musician who manages the
famed Olafson Hotel, kept up a stream of dispatches on the aftershocks
and damage reports. The news, based mostly on second-hand reports and
photos, was disturbing, with people screaming in fear and roads blocked
with debris. Belair, a slum even in the best of times, was said to be
"a broken mess."
The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centered
about 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of 5
miles (8 kilometers), the U.S. Geological Survey said. USGS
geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since
1770 in what is now Haiti. In 1946, a magnitude-8.1 quake struck the
Dominican Republic and also shook Haiti, producing a tsunami that
killed 1,790 people.
The temblor appeared to have occurred along a strike-slip fault, where
one side of a vertical fault slips horizontally past the other, said
earthquake expert Tom Jordan at the University of Southern California.
The earthquake's size and proximity to populated Port-au-Prince likely
caused widespread casualties and structural damage, he said.
"It's going to be a real killer," he said. "Whenever something like
this happens, you just hope for the best."
Most of Haiti's 9 million people are desperately poor, and after years
of political instability the country has no real construction
standards. In November 2008, following the collapse of a school in
Petionville, the mayor of Port-au-Prince estimated about 60 percent of
the buildings were shoddily built and unsafe in normal circumstances.
Tuesday's quake was felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares a
border with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, and some panicked
residents in the capital of Santo Domingo fled from their shaking
homes. But no major damage was reported there.
In eastern Cuba, houses shook but there were also no reports of
significant damage.
"We felt it very strongly and I would say for a long time. We had time
to evacuate," said Monsignor Dionisio Garcia, archbishop of Santiago.
The few reports emerging from Haiti made clear the country had suffered
extensive damage.
"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Henry
Bahn, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official visiting
Port-au-Prince. "The sky is just gray with dust."
Bahn said he was walking to his hotel room when the ground began to
shake.
"I just held on and bounced across the wall," he said. "I just hear a
tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance."
Bahn said there were rocks strewn about and he saw a ravine where
several homes had stood: "It's just full of collapsed walls and rubble
and barbed wire."
In the community of Thomassin, just outside Port-au-Prince, Alain Denis
said neighbors told him the only road to the capital had been cut but
that phones were all dead so it was hard to determine the extent of the
damage.
"At this point, everything is a rumor," he said. "It's dark. It's
nighttime."
Former President Bill Clinton, the U.N.'s special envoy for Haiti,
issued a statement saying his office would do whatever he could to help
the nation recover and rebuild.
"My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti," he said.
President Barack Obama ordered U.S. officials to start preparing in
case humanitarian assistance was needed.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said his government planned
to send a military aircraft carrying canned foods, medicine and
drinking water and also would dispatch a team of 50 rescue workers
Haitian musician Wyclef Jean urged his fans to donate to earthquake
relief efforts, saying he had received text messages from his homeland
reporting that many people had died.
"We must think ahead for the aftershock, the people will need food,
medicine, shelter, etc.," Jean said on his Web site.
Brazil's government was trying to re-establish communications with its
embassy and military personnel in Haiti late Tuesday, according to the
G1 Web site of Globo TV. Brazil leads a 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping
force there.
Felix Augustin, Haiti's consul general in New York, said he was
concerned about everyone in Haiti, including his relatives.
"Communication is absolutely impossible," he said. "I've been trying to
call my ministry and I cannot get through. ... It's mind-boggling."
Page last
updated at 02:34 GMT, Wednesday,
13 January 2010
Haitian website Radio Tele Ginen has been
posting images of ruined buildings and wrecked cars
A 7.3-magnitude earthquake which
struck off the coast of Haiti is feared to have caused major loss of
life in and around the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Haiti's envoy to the US said it was a "catastrophe of major
proportions".
Buildings, including a hospital, are said to have collapsed,
and rescue efforts are under way.
The
quake, which struck about 15km (10 miles) south-west of the capital,
was quickly followed by two strong aftershocks of 5.9 and 5.5
magnitude.
The tremor hit at 1653 (2153 GMT), the US Geological Survey
said. Phone lines to the country failed shortly afterwards.
A Reuters reporter in Port-au-Prince said he had seen "dozens
of dead and injured people" in the rubble of fallen buildings.
Karel Zelenka, a Catholic Relief Services representative in
Port-au-Prince, told colleagues in the US "there must be thousands of
people dead".
The aid worker had managed to phone his colleagues before
communication links went down.
The BBC's Nick Davies in neighbouring Jamaica says the ground
apparently shook for more than a minute in Haiti.
Local
people, he said, were using anything they could get their hands on -
including farm equipment - to help release those trapped in the quake.
Our
correspondent adds that, as the poorest country in the western
hemisphere, Haiti is likely to need international aid in order to cope
with the quake's impact.
'Three million affected'
US
President Barack Obama said in a statement that his "thoughts and
prayers" were with the people of Haiti and America stood ready to
assist them.
UN officials said they were having trouble contacting their
mission in Haiti to get a clear picture of the aftermath.
"We
are trying to get in touch with our people on the ground but we are
experiencing communication problems, which is not unusual in a disaster
such as this," spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker told AFP news agency in New
York.
Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the US, told CNN: "I
think it is really a catastrophe of major proportions."
He said he had just spoken to a government colleague in
Port-au-Prince:
"He
had to stop his car just about half an hour ago, and take to the
streets, start walking, but he said houses were crumbling on the right
side of the street and the left side of the street.
"He does
not know whether he would reach his home, not knowing what he would
find, because he had a bridge to cross to get there."
Mike Blanpied of the US Geological Survey said that, based on
the
location and size of the quake, about three million people will have
been severely shaken by its impact.
"This quake occurred under
land as opposed to off-shore, so a lot of people were directly exposed
to the shaking coming off that earthquake fault, which was quite
shallow," he told the BBC.
He added that as the quake had
occurred near a highly populated urban area, the aftershocks could
cause additional damage to already shaken buildings.
'Rubble and wire'
An
Associated Press cameraman saw the wrecked hospital in Petionville, a
hilly suburb of the capital, and Henry Bahn, a visiting official from
the US Department of Agriculture, said he had seen houses which had
tumbled into a ravine.
|
HAITI COUNTRY PROFILE
Half of Caribbean island of Hispaniola
History of violence, instability and
dictatorship
Population of 10 million people
Most live on less than $2 a day
Democratic rule restored in 2006
Economy in ruins and unemployment is
chronic
UN peacekeepers deployed - foreign aid
seen as vital
Massive deforestation has left just 2%
forest
|
"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken,"
said Mr Bahn, who described the sky as "just grey with dust".
He said he had been walking to his hotel room when the ground
began to shake.
"I just held on and bounced across the wall," he said.
"I just hear a tremendous amount of noise and shouting and
screaming in the distance."
He
said rocks were strewn all over the place, and the ravine where several
homes had fallen in was "just full of collapsed walls and rubble and
barbed wire".
BBC News website readers in the Dominican
Republic, which borders Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, said they
had also felt the quake.
"My family is on the 8th floor of a tower in downtown Santo
Domingo," wrote Max Levine.
"We
felt a swaying of the building for 5-10 seconds. All the lamps were
swinging. There was a 20-second pause and then another similar sway. We
rushed out of the building with many others to the street."
In
the immediate aftermath of the quake, a tsunami watch was put out for
Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas, but this was later lifted.
6.5 Northern Calif.
quake leaves jumble of debris
YAHOO
By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writers
January 10, 2010
EUREKA, Calif. – A powerful offshore earthquake that struck near the
Northern California coast left a hodgepodge of debris for communities
to sort through Sunday but spared residents any serious injury.
The 6.5 magnitude temblor hit at about 4:27 p.m. PST Saturday and was
centered in the Pacific about 22 miles west of Ferndale. It was felt in
towns more than 300 miles south into central California and as far
north as central Oregon, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Ferndale is
about 240 miles north of San Francisco.
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.
Authorities on Saturday said no major injuries were reported. But
several people received minor cuts and scrapes from broken glass at the
Bayshore Mall in Eureka, and an elderly person fell and broke a hip,
authorities said.
"We're mostly getting reports of bumps, bruises and hits on the head,"
said Laurie Watson Stone, a spokeswoman for St. Joseph Hospital, a
146-bed hospital in Eureka. "The emergency room is busy, but we haven't
heard of any major injuries."
Amanda Nichols, a dispatcher for Eureka Police Department, said she
received a report that an infant was struck in the head with some
flying debris at the mall.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokesman J.D. Guidi said power outages
were widespread across most of Humboldt County, affecting about 25,000
customers.
Nearly 10,000 remained without power some five hours after the quake,
and some could remain without power through Sunday, said PG&E
spokeswoman Janna Morris.
No damage was done to the company's former nuclear power plant outside
Eureka, Morris said.
Several traffic lights fell and numerous residents reported water, gas
and sewer leaks, Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services
spokeswoman Jo Wattle said.
"People have chimneys down, and we're hearing about minor property
damage and lots of glassware broken," Wattle said. "People are really
shaken up. It was shaking pretty good, then it had a big jolt to it at
the end."
Police in Ferndale, a town of about 1,500 residents, said the
earthquake caused stucco to fall off City Hall and broke shop windows,
strewing the historic downtown streets with glass shards.
"I thought a tire had blown off my truck because it was so hard to keep
control of the vehicle," Officer Lindsey Frank said. "Power lines were
swaying, and I could see people in the fields trying to keep their
balance."
Eureka city spokesman Gary Bird said because the earthquake hit shortly
before dark, only the city's old town received thorough surveys for
damage. Authorities there found fallen bricks and parapets that had
fallen off old structures, causing damage to adjacent buildings, he
said.
"There are some frayed nerves, but I think we've come through this
pretty well for the magnitude of earthquake we've had," Bird said.
Televisions tumbled and objects were knocked off walls in Arcata, a
small town that's home to Humboldt State University, one resident said.
"The whole town is kind of freaked out right now," said Judd Starks,
the kitchen manager at a bar and restaurant known as The Alibi.
California is one of the world's most seismically active regions. More
than 300 faults crisscross the state, which sits atop two of Earth's
major tectonic plates, the Pacific and North American plates. About
10,000 quakes each year rattle Southern California alone, although most
of them are too small to be felt.
Earthquake strikes central Whidbey
South Whidbey RECORD
Jul 02 2009, 7:25 AM · UPDATED
An earthquake measuring 3.7 on the Richter scale hit about two miles
east/southeast of Coupeville on Whidbey Island at 5:09 a.m. Wednesday
morning. There were no reports of injury or damage, according to
Island County Sheriff Deputy Wylie Farr.
"It was apparently about 36 miles below the earth and most people don't
even know about it," she said. "We checked with emergency services and
I-COM and there were only a few reports."
University of Washington staff scientist Bill Steele said the event was
similar to a 4.5-magnitude quake recorded under Poulsbo on Jan. 30.
"It was kind of a groaning of the Juan de Fuca plate that runs under
the sound," he explained. "We have a number of them every year.
Sometimes a lot of little quakes can indicate a larger strain is
building."
He said there's still a lot science doesn't know, nor can anyone
predict where a quake will strike.
"There's an 83 percent chance you could have a magnitude-seven
earthquake right under you within the next six years. Or in the next 50
years," he said.
One early-morning riser felt the temblor. Coupeville resident
Julie Rosenthal felt the earthquake and knew what it was right away.
"I was kind of waking up anyway, but I knew it was an earthquake
because I'm from California and I'm used to the feeling," Rosenthal
said.
Rosenthal, who lives about six miles south of downtown Coupeville in
the Admirals Cove neigborhood said that she had not heard if anyone in
Coupeville center had felt it.
"My son Blake said he thought it sounded like the wind was hitting the
house really hard."
Her daughter was sleeping outside in the playhouse with a girlfriend
when they heard the quake.
"She thought it was the boys goofing around and banging on the windows.
My boys, who are all Boy Scouts, said that they should get an emergency
preparedness kit ready, just in case," she said.
The United States Geological Survey Web site —
earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter — reported that 16 Coupeville residents
and 30 Oak Harbor residents called in about the quake. The
Richter magnitude scale assigns a single number to quantify the amount
of seismic energy released by an earthquake, based on a 1 to 10
logarithmic scale. An earthquake that measures 5.0 on the Richter scale
has a shaking amplitude 10 times larger than one that measures 4.0.
Deep in Bedrock, Clean Energy and Quake
Fears
NYTIMES
By JAMES GLANZ
June 24, 2009
BASEL, Switzerland — Markus O. Häring, a former oilman, was a hero
in
this city of medieval cathedrals and intense environmental passion
three years ago, all because he had drilled a hole three miles deep
near the corner of Neuhaus Street and Shafer Lane.
He was prospecting for a vast source of clean, renewable energy that
seemed straight out of a Jules Verne novel: the heat simmering within
the earth’s bedrock.
All seemed to be going well — until Dec. 8, 2006, when the project set
off an earthquake, shaking and damaging buildings and terrifying many
in a city that, as every schoolchild here learns, had been devastated
exactly 650 years before by a quake that sent two steeples of the
Münster Cathedral tumbling into the Rhine.
Hastily shut down, Mr. Häring’s project was soon forgotten by
nearly
everyone outside Switzerland. As early as this week, though, an
American start-up company, AltaRock Energy, will begin using nearly the
same method to drill deep into ground laced with fault lines in an area
two hours’ drive north of San Francisco.
Residents of the region, which straddles Lake and Sonoma Counties, have
already been protesting swarms of smaller earthquakes set off by a less
geologically invasive set of energy projects there. AltaRock officials
said that they chose the spot in part because the history of mostly
small quakes reassured them that the risks were limited.
Like the effort in Basel, the new project will tap geothermal energy by
fracturing hard rock more than two miles deep to extract its heat.
AltaRock, founded by Susan Petty, a veteran geothermal researcher, has
secured more than $36 million from the Energy Department, several large
venture-capital firms, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers,
and Google. AltaRock maintains that it will steer clear of large faults
and that it can operate safely.
But in a report on seismic impact that AltaRock was required to file,
the company failed to mention that the Basel program was shut down
because of the earthquake it caused. AltaRock claimed it was uncertain
that the project had caused the quake, even though Swiss government
seismologists and officials on the Basel project agreed that it did.
Nor did AltaRock mention the thousands of smaller earthquakes induced
by the Basel project that continued for months after it shut down.
The California project is the first of dozens that could be operating
in the United States in the next several years, driven by a push to cut
emissions of heat-trapping gases and the Obama administration’s support
for renewable energy.
Geothermal’s potential as a clean energy source has raised huge hopes,
and its advocates believe it could put a significant dent in American
dependence on fossil fuels — potentially supplying roughly 15 percent
of the nation’s electricity by 2030, according to one estimate by
Google. The earth’s heat is always there waiting to be tapped, unlike
wind and solar power, which are intermittent and thus more fickle.
According to a 2007 geothermal report financed by the Energy
Department, advanced geothermal power could in theory produce as much
as 60,000 times the nation’s annual energy usage. President Obama, in a
news conference Tuesday, cited geothermal power as part of the “clean
energy transformation” that a climate bill now before Congress could
bring about.
Dan W. Reicher, an assistant energy secretary in the Clinton
administration who is now director of climate change and energy at
Google’s investment and philanthropic arm, said geothermal energy had
“the potential to deliver vast amounts of power almost anywhere in the
world, 24/7.”
Power companies have long produced limited amounts of geothermal energy
by tapping shallow steam beds, often beneath geysers or vents called
fumaroles. Even those projects can induce earthquakes, although most
are small. But for geothermal energy to be used more widely, engineers
need to find a way to draw on the heat at deeper levels percolating in
the earth’s core.
Some geothermal advocates believe the method used in Basel, and to be
tried in California, could be that breakthrough. But because large
earthquakes tend to originate at great depths, breaking rock that far
down carries more serious risk, seismologists say. Seismologists have
long known that human activities can trigger quakes, but they say the
science is not developed enough to say for certain what will or will
not set off a major temblor.
Even so, there is no shortage of money for testing the idea. Mr.
Reicher has overseen a $6.25 million investment by Google in AltaRock,
and with more than $200 million in new federal money for geothermal,
the Energy Department has already approved financing for related
projects in Idaho by the University of Utah; in Nevada by Ormat
Technologies; and in California by Calpine, just a few miles from
AltaRock’s project.
Steven E. Koonin, the under secretary for science at the Energy
Department, said the earthquake issue was new to him, but added, “We’re
committed to doing things in a factual and rigorous way, and if there
is a problem, we will attend to it.”
The tone is more urgent in Europe. “This was my main question to the
experts: Can you exclude that there is a major earthquake triggered by
this man-made activity?” said Rudolf Braun, chairman of the project
team that the City of Basel created to study the risks of resuming the
project.
“I was quite surprised that all of them said: ‘No, we can’t. We can’t
exclude it,’ “ said Mr. Braun, whose study is due this year.
“It would be just unfortunate if, in the United States, you rush ahead
and don’t take into account what happened here,” he said.
Basel’s Big Shock
By the time people were getting off work amid rain squalls in Basel on
Dec. 8, 2006, Mr. Häring’s problems had already begun. His
incision
into the ground was setting off small earthquakes that people were
starting to feel around the city.
Mr. Häring knew that by its very nature, the technique created
earthquakes because it requires injecting water at great pressure down
drilled holes to fracture the deep bedrock. The opening of each
fracture is, literally, a tiny earthquake in which subterranean
stresses rip apart a weak vein, crack or fault in the rock. The
high-pressure water can be thought of loosely as a lubricant that makes
it easier for those forces to slide the earth along the weak points,
creating a web or network of fractures.
Mr. Häring planned to use that network as the ultimate teapot,
circulating water through the fractures and hoping it emerged as steam.
But what surprised him that afternoon was the intensity of the quakes
because advocates of the method believe they can pull off a delicate
balancing act, tearing the rock without creating larger earthquakes.
Alarmed, Mr. Häring and other company officials decided to release
all
pressure in the well to try to halt the fracturing. But as they stood a
few miles from the drill site, giving the orders by speakerphone to
workers atop the hole, a much bigger jolt shook the room.
“I think that was us,” said one stunned official.
Analysis of seismic data proved him correct. The quake measured 3.4 —
modest in some parts of the world. But triggered quakes tend to be
shallower than natural ones, and residents generally describe them as a
single, explosive bang or jolt — often out of proportion to the
magnitude — rather than a rumble.
Triggered quakes are also frequently accompanied by an “air shock,” a
loud tearing or roaring noise.
The noise “made me feel it was some sort of supersonic aircraft going
overhead,” said Heinrich Schwendener, who, as president of Geopower
Basel, the consortium that includes Geothermal Explorers and the
utility companies, was standing next to the borehole.
“It took me maybe half a minute to realize, hey, this is not a
supersonic plane, this is my well,” Mr. Schwendener said.
By that time, much of the city was in an uproar. In the newsroom of the
city’s main paper, Basler Zeitung, reporters dived under tables and
desks, some refusing to move until a veteran editor barked at them to
go get the story, said Philipp Loser, 28, a reporter there.
Aysel Mermer, 25, a waitress at the Restaurant Schiff near the Rhine
River, said she thought a bomb had gone off.
Eveline Meyer, 44, a receptionist at a maritime exhibition, was on the
phone with a friend and thought that her washing machine had, all by
itself, started clattering with an unbalanced load. “I was saying to my
friend, ‘Am I now completely nuts?’ “ Ms. Meyer recalled. Then, she
said, the line went dead.
Mr. Häring was rushed to police headquarters in a squad car so he
could
explain what had happened. By the time word slipped out that the
project had set off the earthquake, Mr. Loser said, outrage was
sweeping the city. The earthquakes, including three more above
magnitude 3, rattled on for about a year — more than 3,500 in all,
according to the company’s sensors.
Although no serious injuries were reported, Geothermal Explorers’
insurance company ultimately paid more than $8 million in mostly minor
damage claims to the owners of thousands of houses in Switzerland and
in neighboring Germany and France.
Optimism and Opportunity
In the United States, where the Basel earthquakes received little news
coverage, the fortunes of geothermal energy were already on a dizzying
rise. The optimistic conclusions of the Energy Department’s geothermal
report began driving interest from investors, as word trickled out
before its official release.
In fall 2006, after some of the findings were presented at a trade
meeting, Trae Vassallo, a partner at the firm Kleiner Perkins, phoned
Ms. Petty, the geothermal researcher who was one of 18 authors on the
report, according to e-mail messages from both women. That call
eventually led Ms. Petty to found AltaRock and bring in, by Ms. Petty’s
tally, another six of the authors as consultants to the company or in
other roles.
J. David Rogers, a professor and geological engineer at the Missouri
University of Science and Technology who was not involved in the
report, said such overlap of research and commercial interests was
common in science and engineering but added that it might be perceived
as a conflict of interest. “It’s very, very satisfying to see something
go from theory to application to actually making money and being
accepted by society,” Professor Rogers said. “It’s what every scientist
dreams of.”
Ms. Petty said that her first “serious discussions” with Ms. Vassallo
about forming a company did not come until the report was officially
released in late January 2007. That June, Ms. Petty founded AltaRock
with $4 million from Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures, an investment
firm based in California.
The Basel earthquake hit more than a month before the Energy
Department’s report came out, but no reference to it was included in
the report’s spare and reassuring references to earthquake risks. Ms.
Petty said the document had already been at the printer by the fall,
“so there was no way we could have included the Basel event in the
report.”
Officials at AltaRock, with offices in Sausalito, Calif., and Seattle,
insist that the company has learned the lessons of Basel and that its
own studies indicate the project can be carried out safely. James T.
Turner, AltaRock’s senior vice president for operations, said the
company had applied for roughly 20 patents on ways to improve the
method.
Mr. Turner also asserted in a visit to the project site last month that
AltaRock’s monitoring and fail-safe systems were superior to those used
in Basel.
“We think it’s going to be pretty neat,” Mr. Turner said as he stood
next to a rig where the company plans to drill a hole almost two and a
half miles deep. “And when it’s successful, we’ll have a good-news
story that says we can extend geothermal energy.”
AltaRock, in its seismic activity report, included the Basel earthquake
in a list of temblors near geothermal projects, but the company denied
that it had left out crucial details of the quake in seeking approval
for the project in California. So far, the company has received its
permit from the federal Bureau of Land Management to drill its first
hole on land leased to the Northern California Power Agency, but still
awaits a second permit to fracture rock.
“We did discuss Basel, in particular, the 3.4 event, with the B.L.M.
early in the project,” Mr. Turner said in an e-mail response to
questions after the visit.
But Richard Estabrook, a petroleum engineer in the Ukiah, Calif., field
office of the land agency who has a lead role in granting the necessary
federal permits, gave a different account when asked if he knew that
the Basel project had shut down because of earthquakes or that it had
induced more than 3,500 quakes.
“I’ll be honest,” he said. “I didn’t know that.”
Mr. Estabrook said he was still leaning toward giving approval if the
company agreed to controls that could stop the work if it set off
earthquakes above a certain intensity. But, he said, speaking of the
Basel project’s shutdown, “I wish that had been disclosed.”
Bracing for Tremors
There was a time when Anderson Springs, about two miles from the
project site, had few earthquakes — no more than anywhere else in the
hills of Northern California. Over cookies and tea in the cabin his
family has owned since 1958, Tom Grant and his sister Cynthia Lora
reminisced with their spouses over visiting the town, once famous for
its mineral baths, in the 1940s and ’50s. “I never felt an earthquake
up here,” Mr. Grant said .
Then came a frenzy of drilling for underground steam just to the west
at The Geysers, a roughly 30-square-mile patch of wooded hills threaded
with huge, curving tubes and squat power plants. The Geysers is the
nation’s largest producer of traditional geothermal energy. Government
seismologists confirm that earthquakes were far less frequent in the
past and that the geothermal project produces as many as 1,000 small
earthquakes a year as the ground expands and contracts like an enormous
sponge with the extraction of steam and the injection of water to
replace it.
These days, Anderson Springs is a mixed community of working class and
retired residents, affluent professionals and a smattering of artists.
Everyone has a story about earthquakes. There are cats that suddenly
leap in terror, guests who have to be warned about tremors, thousands
of dollars of repairs to walls and cabinets that just do not want to
stay together.
Residents have been fighting for years with California power companies
over the earthquakes, occasionally winning modest financial
compensation. But the obscure nature of earthquakes always gives the
companies an out, says Douglas Bartlett, who works in marketing at Bay
Area Rapid Transit in San Francisco, and with his wife, Susan, owns a
bungalow in town.
“If they were creating tornadoes, they would be shut down immediately,”
Mr. Bartlett said. “But because it’s under the ground, where you can’t
see it, and somewhat conjectural, they keep doing it.”
Now, the residents are bracing for more. As David Oppenheimer, a
seismologist at the United States Geological Survey in Menlo Park,
Calif., explains it, The Geysers is heated by magma welling up from
deep in the earth. Above the magma is a layer of granite-like rock
called felsite, which transmits heat to a thick layer of sandstone-like
material called graywacke, riddled with fractures and filled with steam.
The steam is what originally drew the power companies here. But the
AltaRock project will, for the first time, drill deep into the felsite.
Mr. Turner said that AltaRock, which will drill on federal land leased
by the Northern California Power Agency, had calculated that the number
of earthquakes felt by residents in Anderson Springs and local
communities would not noticeably increase.
But many residents are skeptical.
“It’s terrifying,” said Susan Bartlett, who works as a new patient
coordinator at the Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco. “What’s
happening to all these rocks that they’re busting into a million
pieces?”
Strong earthquake shakes tall buildings
in Mexico City, sends people running into streets
Courant.com
Associated Press Writer
JULIE WATSON
2:21 AM EDT, May 23, 2009
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A strong earthquake swayed skyscrapers in Mexico
City and rattled colonial buildings in neighboring Puebla state Friday,
sending frightened people into the streets. There were no immediate
reports of injuries or damage. The U.S. Geological Survey said
the quake had a magnitude of 5.7 and was centered 90 miles (140
kilometers) southeast of the capital. The Mexican seismological service
measured it at 5.9.
Puebla state civil protection chief German Garcia said there were no
reports of injuries or collapsed buildings near the epicenter: "There
is absolute calm, zero damage."
Puebla city is a popular tourist destination known for its gilded
churches and ornate "Talavera" pottery. One of the country's main
Talavera producers, Uriarte, said the quake shook shelves but the
merchandise emerged unscathed. In Mexico City, 20-year-old office
worker Mariana Rodriguez was in a 19th-floor bathroom when she felt her
building sway.
"I saw in the mirror that everything was moving," she said. "The soap
even fell down. We were really nervous, but they didn't let us leave
the building."
One 15-story apartment building in the trendy Condesa neighborhood
rocked so much that doors opened and slammed shut — something the
residents said sounded like "ghosts."
Many ran outside across the metropolis of 20 million. Evacuation
officials steered crowds away from power lines and other potential
hazards, and anxious people waited for several minutes before returning
indoors.
Others immediately got on Facebook and Twitter to tell friends and
family they were OK. Some said their cell phone service was knocked
out. Friday's earthquake was stronger and closer to the capital
than one that hit last month. But Bruce Tresgrave of the U.S.
Geological Survey said it was 35 miles (56 kilometers) below ground —
deeper than normal — and thus unlikely to cause major damage.
Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard also said no damage was reported, and
the capital's water system, hospitals and subway were not affected.
Officials were conducting a more detailed survey.
The capital has lived through powerful earthquakes, including one in
1985 that killed as many as 10,000 people. Parts of Mexico City rest on
the shaky soil of a former lake bed, which tends to magnify the effect
of earthquakes.
Small Earthquake Noted Near SC Coast;
No Injuries
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:11 p.m. ET
May 6, 2009
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- A weak earthquake has been recorded near the
South Carolina coast, but officials say there are no immediate reports
of damages or injuries.
The Earthquake Hazards Program of the U.S. Geological Survey said the
2.5 magnitude temblor was recorded near Summerville just after 1 p.m.
Wednesday.
The epicenter was near a fault blamed for a deadly magnitude 7.3
earthquake in 1886 that killed more than 100.
Last December, a 3.6 magnitude quake tipped over Christmas trees,
knocked pictures off walls and caused minor injuries.
Erin Beutel, a College of Charleston geologist, said quakes have been
recorded this year near Columbia, between Orangeburg and Aiken, and
north of Florence. None caused damage.
At Least 92 Die in Earthquake in Italy
NYTIMES
By RACHEL DONADIO and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
April 7, 2009
L’AQUILA, Italy — More than 90 people died and tens of thousands were
left homeless when a 6.3 magnitude earthquake shook central Italy early
Monday, seriously damaging buildings in the mountainous Abruzzo Region
east of Rome, officials said. Aftershocks shuddered through the
area during the day, hampering rescue efforts as people clawed through
the debris by hand, frantically seeking survivors.
Most of the deaths were in L’Aquila, a picturesque medieval fortress
hill town, where the quake split the cupola of the 18th-century Santa
Maria del Sofraggio church like an eggshell, exposing the stucco
patterns inside the dome. Other historic buildings were also
damaged in L’Aquila, the quake’s epicenter. Italian authorities
assisted elderly residents in leaving the historic main square, where
they had fled in search of safety.
The narrow streets of the historic center were filled with rubble, and
parked cars were crushed under large blocks of debris. Outside a
damaged convent, a dozen nuns still dressed in bright orange and blue
bathrobes climbed into a van headed to an assistance center. Sister
Lidia, the mother superior, said an 82-year old nun had died of shock.
“The quake, it was very strong,” she said.
The Italian news agency, ANSA, quoted rescue workers in mid-afternoon
as saying the death toll had reached 92 and Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi saying that 1500 people had been injured. A spokesman for
Italy’s Civil Protection Agency said on national television that an
estimated 40,000 to 50,000 people had been left homeless. Reports
from the areas said that at least 26 towns had been affected by the
earthquake. “Some towns in the area have been virtually destroyed in
their entirety,” Gianfranco Fini, speaker of the lower house of
Parliament, said in Rome before the chamber observed a moment of
silence.
Mr. Berlusconi canceled a trip to Moscow to travel to L’Aquila, where
he surveyed the damage by helicopter. “At the moment 4,000 rescuers are
at work and concentrating on extracting people from the rubble,” he
said, according to ANSA.
The situation is “extremely critical, as many buildings have
collapsed,” Luca Spoletini, a spokesman for the civil protection
agency, told ANSA shortly after the quake struck.
Four children died in the hospital after their house collapsed, ANSA
reported. A fifth child died in the village of Fossa, eight miles from
L’Aquila, a town of 80,000. The quake struck around 3:30 a.m. and
could be felt as far away as Rome, some 60 miles to the west, where it
rattled furniture and set off car alarms. The United States Geological
Survey said the earthquake that hit L’Aquila had a magnitude of 6.3,
the most violent of several quakes to hit the region overnight.
Part of a student dormitory in L’Aquila collapsed, and initial reports
said one person died and seven people were missing in the debris. At
midday, shaken students sat outside the rubble of the four-story
dormitory, expressing fears for the fate of others who may not have
survived.
“We’re waiting for my son,” said a distraught-looking mother who
declined to give her name. She stood among a knot of anxious onlookers
and hid her red eyes behind large sunglasses.
“This shouldn’t have happened,” said Gabriele Magrini, 21, a physics
student at L’Aquila University, who had been across town at a friend’s
house when the quake struck. He said he had been waiting at the
university since 4 a.m., adding: “We’ve only seen two people come out.
We’re still waiting for 10.”
There was a first shock after 11 p.m., Mr. Magrini said, adding that he
hadn’t realized how bad the major shock had been until he saw the
destruction. Damage to buildings was visible throughout the city,
including at the town’s main cathedral. On Monday afternoon, the
Italian Culture Ministry posted a list of historical monuments that had
been damaged in L’Aquila, including the steeple of the church of San
Bernardino; a small cupola in the church of Sant’Agostino; the cupola
of the church of the Suffragio; a palazzo housing the state archives;
part of the transept of the basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio; and
parts of the 16th century castle that houses the National Museum of
Abruzzo, which has been closed to the public.
The worst hit seemed to be the city center in L’Aquila, but the modern
buildings in the outer part of the city were also affected. Residents
wheeling dusty suitcases wandered through the streets as rescue workers
sifted through the rubble. Electricity, phone and gas lines were also
reported damaged.
“It’s a disaster never before seen,” said Franco Totani, a lawyer who
said he was born in L’Aquila and was leaving the town to stay at an
elderly uncle’s house in Rome. “I’ve seen earthquakes before but this
is a catastrophe.”
People in surrounding cities in the Abruzzo and Marche regions also
rushed into the streets, fearing their houses would collapse. In
a letter to the archbishop of L’Aquila, the Vatican secretary of state,
Tarcisio Bertone, wrote that Pope Benedict XVI was praying “for the
victims, in particular for children.”
Speaking on Rainews 24, Guido Bertolaso, Italy’s top civil protection
official said that the earthquake was “comparable if not superior to
the one which struck Umbria in 1997.” That quake killed 10 people and
damaged medieval buildings and churches across the region, including
Assisi’s famed basilica.
Seismic activity is relatively common in Italy, but intensity like that
of Monday’s quake is rare. The L’Aquila quake was the worst to hit
Italy since 1980, when a 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck Eboli, south
of Naples, leaving more than 2,700 people dead.
The last major quake to hit central Italy struck the south-central
Molise region on Oct. 31, 2002, killing 28 people, including 27
children who died when their school collapsed.
Everett,
Wash.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Small quake rattles Puget Sound area;
no reports of damage
Associated Press
Published: Friday, January 30, 2009
SEATTLE -- There are no immediate reports of damage from a 4.5
magnitude earthquake that rattled the Seattle and Puget Sound area at
5:25 a.m. today. But it woke a lot of people up.
The U.S. Geological Survey says it was centered 16 miles northwest of
Seattle near Kingston, in Kitsap County.
The Geological Survey initially reported it as a 4.6 quake, but the
University of Washington report on the Pacific Northwest Seismic
Network listed it at 4.5.
The network shows it was felt throughout the Puget Sound area in
Western Washington, and people reported feeling it in Victoria, British
Columbia, 71 miles to the north.
The shaking woke up Robert Lyden on Anderson Island in Puget Sound.
"It shook the house like something had hit the roof," he said. "It just
woke us up." Other than knocking a water fountain off his deck there
was no damage.
Lacey Menne says it shook her home as she was preparing to go to work
at the Coastal Cafe in Kingston.
"It wasn't strong enough to make anything fall," she said. "It was
like, what is that? I think it might be an earthquake. It's totally an
earthquake!"
Seattle radio and TV stations report callers around the Puget Sound
area felt the shaking for 10 or 15 seconds.
© 2009The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA
Pre-quake
changes seen in rocks
I-BBC
9 July 2008
Scientists have made an important advance in their efforts to predict
earthquakes, the journal Nature says.
A team of US researchers has detected stress-induced changes in rocks
that occurred hours before two small tremors in California's San
Andreas Fault.
The observations used sensors lowered down holes drilled into the quake
zone.
The team says we are a long way from routine tremor forecasts but the
latest findings hold out hope that such services might be possible one
day.
"If you had 10 hours' warning, from a practical point of view, you
could evacuate populations, you could certainly get people out of
buildings, you could get the fire department ready," said co-author
Paul Silver of the Carnegie Institution of Science, Washington.
"Hurricane [warnings] give you an idea of what could be done," he told
BBC News...The new work comes out of the San Andreas Fault Observatory
at Depth (Safod) project which has been set up in Parkfield, a tiny
rural town halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco...
History of deadly
earthquakes
I-BBC
Page last updated at 10:39 GMT, Monday, 6
April 2009 11:39 UK
The 1995 Kobe earthquake highlighted
Japan's lack of disaster preparation
|
Earthquakes have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in
the
last 100 years and improvements in technology have only slightly
reduced the death toll.
6 April 2009
Scores die in Italy as a powerful earthquake hits the
historic central city of L'Aquila.
29 October 2008
Up
to 300 people are killed in the Pakistani province of Balochistan after
an earthquake of 6.4 magnitude struck 70km (45 miles) north of Quetta.
12 May 2008:
Up
to 87,000 people are killed or missing and as many as 370,000 injured
by an earthquake in just one county in China's south-western Sichuan
province.
The tremor, measuring 7.8, struck 92km (57 miles) from the
provincial capital Chengdu during the early afternoon.
15 August 2007:
At
least 519 people are killed in Peru's coastal province of Ica, as a
7.90-magnitude undersea earthquake strikes about 145km (90 miles)
south-east of the capital, Lima.
17 July 2006:
A
7.7 magnitude undersea earthquake triggers a tsunami that strikes a
200km (125-mile) stretch of the southern coast of Java, killing more
than 650 people on the Indonesian island.
27 May 2006:
More
than 5,700 people die when a magnitude 6.2 quake hits the Indonesian
island of Java, devastating the city of Yogyakarta and surrounding
areas.
1 April 2006:
Seventy people are killed and some 1,200 injured when an
earthquake measuring 6.0 strikes a remote region of western Iran.
8 October 2005:
An
earthquake measuring 7.6 strikes northern Pakistan and the disputed
Kashmir region, killing more than 73,000 people and leaving millions
homeless.
28 March 2005:
About 1,300 people are killed in an 8.7 magnitude quake off
the coast of the Indonesian island of Nias, west of Sumatra.
22 February 2005:
Hundreds die in a 6.4 magnitude quake centred in a remote
area near Zarand in Iran's Kerman province.
26 December 2004:
Hundreds
of thousands are killed across Asia when an earthquake measuring 9.2
triggers sea surges that spread across the region.
24 February 2004:
At least 500 people die in an earthquake which strikes towns
on Morocco's Mediterranean coast.
26 December 2003:
More than 26,000 people are killed when an earthquake
destroys the historic city of Bam in southern Iran.
21 May 2003:
Algeria
suffers its worst earthquake in more than two decades. More than 2,000
people die and more than 8,000 are injured in a quake felt across the
sea in Spain.
1 May 2003:
More than 160 people are killed, including 83 children in a
collapsed dormitory, in south-eastern Turkey.
24 February 2003:
More than 260 people die and almost 10,000 homes are
destroyed in Xinjiang region, in western China.
31 October 2002:
Italy
is traumatised by the loss of an entire class of children, killed in
the southern village of San Giuliano di Puglia when their school
building collapses on them.
26 January 2001:
An
earthquake measuring magnitude 7.9 devastates much of Gujarat state in
north-western India, killing nearly 20,000 people and making more than
a million homeless. Bhuj and Ahmedabad are among the towns worst hit.
12 November 1999:
Around 400 people die when an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the
Richter scale strikes Ducze, in north-west Turkey.
21 September 1999:
Taiwan is hit by a quake measuring 7.6 that kills nearly
2,500 people and causes damage to every town on the island.
17 August 1999:
An
magnitude 7.4 earthquake rocks the Turkish cities of Izmit and
Istanbul, leaving more than 17,000 dead and many more injured.
30 May 1998:
Northern Afghanistan is hit by a major earthquake, killing
4,000 people.
May 1997:
More than 1,600 killed in Birjand, eastern Iran, in an
earthquake of magnitude 7.1.
27 May 1995:
The far eastern island of Sakhalin is hit by a massive
earthquake, measuring 7.5, which claims the lives of 1,989 Russians.
17 January 1995:
The Hyogo quake hits the city of Kobe in Japan, killing 6,430
people.
30 September 1993:
About 10,000 villagers are killed in western and southern
India.
21 June 1990:
Around 40,000 people die in a tremor in the northern Iranian
province of Gilan.
7 December 1988:
An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale devastates
north-west Armenia, killing 25,000 people.
19 September 1985:
Mexico City is shaken by a huge earthquake which razes
buildings and kills 10,000 people.
28 July 1976:
The Chinese city of Tangshan is reduced to rubble in a quake
that claims at least 250,000 lives.
23 December 1972:
Up
to 10,000 people are killed in the Nicaraguan capital Managua by an
earthquake that measures 6.5 on the Richter scale. The devastation
caused by the earthquake was blamed on badly built high-rise buildings
that easily collapsed.
31 May 1970:
An earthquake high in the Peruvian Andes triggers a landslide
burying the town of Yungay and killing 66,000 people.
26 July 1963:
An
earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale strikes the Macedonian
capital of Skopje killing 1,000 and leaving 100,000 homeless.
22 May 1960:
The
world's strongest recorded earthquake devastates Chile, with a reading
of 9.5 on the Richter scale. A tsunami 30ft (10m) high eliminates
entire villages in Chile and kills 61 hundreds of miles away in Hawaii.
1 September 1923:
The Great Kanto earthquake, with its epicentre just outside
Tokyo, claims the lives of 142,800 people in the Japanese capital.
18 April 1906:
San
Francisco is hit by a series of violent shocks which last up to a
minute. Between 700 and 3,000 people die either from collapsing
buildings or in the subsequent fire.
FIRE
Click above left for a small scale fire in CT, but with pleanty
potential to be deadly...near
Los Angeles, September '09 - BURNING OF LOS ANGELES (oil, 1962) -
even in Alaska? Russia?
Yup.
Burning Russia battles to defend nuclear sites
YAHOO
by Stuart Williams
10 August 2010
MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia fought a deadly battle Tuesday to prevent
wildfires from engulfing key nuclear sites as Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin took to the air in a water-bombing plane to join the firefighting
effort.
Two soldiers were killed by blazing trees as they strove to put out a
fire dangerously close to Russia's main nuclear research centre, while
workers were also mobilised to fight blazes near a nuclear reprocessing
plant. After almost two weeks of fires that have claimed over 50
lives and part destroyed a military storage site, the authorities said
they were making progress in fighting fires that still covered 174,035
hectares of land.
Putin visited the Ryazan region south of Moscow, one of the worst hit,
and jumped into a Be-200 jet to scoop up water from local lakes and
then dump it on the fires, state media said. State television
showed the Russian strongman, headphones clamped against his ears,
confidently taking the co-pilot's controls as the plane zoomed over the
water.
"We hit it!" exclaimed Putin as his colleagues confirmed the water had
hit the target.
The emergencies ministry said that over the last 24 hours, 247 new
fires had appeared, more than the 239 had been put out, and 557 fires
were still raging across the affected region. The authorities
have come under pressure to explain the magnitude of effects of the
heatwave, which meteorologists have said is the worst in the 1,000 year
history of Russia. The head of forestry for the Moscow region,
Sergei Gordeichenko, has been sacked after President Dmitry Medvedev
noted he had stayed on holiday as the fires burned, a spokesman told
AFP.
"He was awaited but he never came... Why do we need such forest
specialists? Let them take their holidays on the Canary Islands,"
Medvedev said Tuesday.
Two members of the Russian armed forces were killed Monday fighting
wildfires around Russia's main nuclear research centre in Sarov, a town
in the Nizhny Novgorod region still closed to foreigners as in Soviet
times. Rifle battalion member Vasily Tezetev, 22, "died the death
of a hero" Monday while dealing with the fire burning in a nature
reserve close to the town, the local emergency centre said Tuesday,
Interfax reported.
Another serviceman, named as Vasily Veshkin, 27, who usually worked at
a local prison camp, also died fighting the fire on the same day, it
added. Both were killed when they were hit by burning parts of trees
that fell to the ground. Meanwhile, officials said fires burning
within 15 kilometres (10 miles) of Snezhinsk in the Urals, home to
another of Russia's top nuclear research centres, had been reduced to a
five-hectare area and there was no risk for the town.
The acrid smog from wildfires 100 kilometres (60 miles) out in the
countryside that descended over Moscow eased Tuesday but forecasters
said the air quality was still dangerously poor. The Moscow
authorities acknowledged for the first time on Monday that the daily
mortality rate in Moscow had doubled and morgues were overflowing with
bodies but the federal government has yet to confirm those
figures. Carbon monoxide in the Moscow air was 1.4 times higher
than acceptable levels Tuesday, the state pollution watchdog said, a
slight improvement from the day before. On Saturday they had been an
alarming 6.6 times worse.
Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov meanwhile met Putin for the first time since
returning from a holiday that saw him ridiculed in the press for
underestimating the crisis.
Putin said pointedly Luzhkov had come back "on time". A Kremlin
official quoted by Russian news agencies was even more critical, saying
his return "should have happened earlier."
The heatwave has had a huge impact on all areas of Russian society and
economists warned Tuesday the record temperatures could have cost the
country up to 15 billion dollars and undercut a modest economic
revival. Worst hit has been agriculture, which has seen 10
million hectares of land destroyed.
I-BBC - 9 August
2010 Last updated at 11:51 ET
Death rate doubles in Moscow as
heatwave continues
An ambulance crosses a smog-bound Red Square, 9 August The full health
impact of the heatwave nationwide has not been reported
Moscow's health chief has confirmed the mortality rate has doubled as a
heatwave and wildfire smog continue to grip the Russian capital.
There were twice the usual number of bodies in the city's morgues,
Andrei Seltsovsky told reporters.
Meanwhile, a state of emergency has been declared around a nuclear
reprocessing plant in the southern Urals because of nearby
wildfires.
And there was a new warning over shortfalls in Russia's grain
harvest.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said this year's harvest, hit by fire and
drought, would be worse than previously forecast.
Currently expected to be 65m tonnes, it could be as low as 60 million
tonnes, Mr Putin said. Mr Putin also said that a ban on grain
exports
could be extended beyond the end of 2010 because of shortages for
domestic markets. Russia is the world's third largest wheat
exporter.
Its biggest customers include Egypt, Turkey and Syria.
As of Monday morning, 557 wildfires continued to burn in Russia, 25 of
them peat fires, the emergencies ministry said. While 239 fires
were
extinguished on Sunday, 247 new ones were discovered.
The head of the state weather service, Alexander Frolov, said on Monday
that the heatwave of 2010 was the worst in 1,000 years of recorded
Russian history.
"It's an absolutely unique phenomenon - nothing like it can be seen in
the archives," he was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.
'Puzzling' death data
Recent death rates for parts of central Russia other than Moscow, which
are seeing similar droughts and wildfires for more than a month, have
not been released.
On normal days, between 360 and 380
die - now it's around 700”
Soon after Mr Seltsovsky gave his information, Russia's Health
Minister, Tatyana Golikova, demanded a formal clarification of his
data. Her ministry said it was "puzzled by the unofficial figures
quoted at the briefing". Mr Seltsovsky did not give a time frame
but
earlier reports had spoken of the death rate in Moscow for July rising
by up to 50% compared with the same period last year.
"On normal days, between 360 and 380 die - now it's around 700," Mr
Seltsovsky told reporters.
Moscow, he said, had 1,500 places in its morgues and 1,300 of these
were currently occupied. While stressing there was still
capacity, he
added that about 30% of bereaved people were asking to have the body
kept in a morgue for more than three days, "which slightly complicates
the situation".
The concentration of carbon monoxide in Moscow was still more than
double acceptable safety norms on Monday as smog from peat and forest
wildfires continued to blanket the city. Temperatures of more
than 35C
(95F) are forecast for the city until Thursday. Since the second
half
of July, at least 52 deaths in Russia as a whole have been attributed
directly to fires, which have destroyed hundreds of rural homes.
Mr Seltsovsky did not attribute the rise in the mortality rate to the
heatwave or smog but doctors, speaking off the record, have talked of
morgues filling with victims of heat stroke and smoke ailments.
Nuclear plant alert
A nuclear plant in the Urals being threatened by the wildfires was the
site of Russia's worst nuclear disaster in 1957.
Some of the land around the Mayak plant in the town of Ozersk (known in
Soviet times as Chelyabinsk-40) is believed to be still contaminated
from the disaster, in which a tank of radioactive waste exploded.
Several leaks of radioactive waste have been reported from the plant in
recent years.
Ozersk's administration announced on the town's website that residents
were forbidden from entering the region's abundant, picturesque
woodlands until further notice, and ordered urgent, unspecified fire
safety measures.
According to Russia's Itar-Tass news agency, Moscow airports were
working normally on Monday after last week's disruptions due to
smog.
Sunday saw more than 104,000 air travellers leaving the capital - a
record number, according to Russian news agencies. Those who
remain in
the city of 10.5m people were being urged to wear face masks if they
ventured outdoors, and to hang wet towels indoors to attract dust and
cool the airflow.
Most apartments in the city lack air conditioning and there are media
reports of wealthier citizens moving out of their homes into hotels,
shopping malls, offices and private cars.
California Fires Confound Emergency
Workers
NYTIMES
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
September 1, 2009
LOS ANGELES — A deadly wildfire that has burned for nearly a week in
the foothills north of here has destroyed dozens of homes and
threatened thousands of others on Monday, frustrating firefighters with
its unusually rapid and unpredictable spread.
The fire, burning in rugged terrain at the foot of the San Gabriel
Mountains about 20 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, has consumed
more than 100,000 acres, or more than 150 square miles, about the size
of the Bronx and Queens combined.
The authorities did not have a precise tally of the damage, but said at
least 70 homes and probably many more, some of them vacation cabins,
some single-family residences, had been destroyed, mostly in remote
areas. More than 3,670 firefighters and support personnel struggled to
track the blaze’s erratic spread and keep flames from encroaching on
large neighborhoods and communities abutting the wilderness.
“This is a very angry fire,” said Mike Dietrich, a commander with the
United States Forest Service, who added that he expected it could take
two weeks to surround and extinguish it.
Though not driven by wind like many catastrophic fires here, this
blaze, fueled by brush dried in record-setting heat and a 10-year
drought, confounded emergency workers.
Just as the authorities cleared some residents to return and cleared
brush and dug trenches to block flames advancing on neighborhoods, new
evacuations were ordered in the eastern San Fernando Valley area of Los
Angeles as towering flames crept over ridgelines and took aim at houses
below.
The fire, whose cause is unknown, claimed the lives of two Los Angeles
County firefighters on Sunday after their truck overturned and fell 800
feet down a hillside as they tried to avoid a burst of fire bearing
down on them. The men died from injuries suffered in the crash and from
the advancing flames, the department said.
A few other people have been injured, including two people who refused
orders to evacuate and sought cover from the flames in a backyard hot
tub as the fire barreled through the area, the authorities said.
Some 4,000 homes were ordered evacuated, but law enforcement
authorities estimated only half of the people complied, preferring to
stay behind to try to help save their homes.
Frank Bagheri, 48, who reluctantly left his home near La Cañada
Flintridge on Sunday morning with his family, said he saw a few
neighbors stay behind hosing down their lawns and houses.
“We finally left because I stopped one of the firefighters running
around our street,” Mr. Bagheri said. “I wanted to ask him whether the
fire would go the other way, or if we’d be O.K. He just looked at me
and said, ‘You don’t want to stay here and get trapped.’ That phrase —
stay here and get trapped — did it. I changed my mind at that point to
leave.”
The fire, called the Station Fire for its origin on Wednesday near a
ranger station in the Angeles National Forest, sent a towering plume
skyward visible from almost all of metropolitan Los Angeles, a stark
herald of the fire season that peaks in late summer and fall. It spread
a fog of unhealthful, brownish air across a vast swath of the region,
and officials said it could take two weeks to put it out.
For some time, the authorities said they were worried that the flames
would overrun Mount Wilson, which includes an observatory and
transmission facilities for some FM radio and television stations. But
thanks in part to rapid brush clearing, crews stationed in the area and
an aerial bombardment by planes dropping water and flame retardant, the
fire was kept back.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Steve
Whitmore, said many people had defied evacuation orders, though, to
avoid a further burden on resources, officers were not making arrests.
A group of people in the Gold Creek area on Monday afternoon who had
refused to evacuate were trapped, and crews struggled to reach them.
One of the men told radio station KNX-AM by phone that they were all
right and that the fire did not appear close.
“They use resources that could be used elsewhere,” Mr. Whitmore said of
people who do not heed evacuation orders. “When you are told to go, go.”
Rebecca Cathcart contributed
reporting.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Fire Update
Interior Alaska has been on national news lately due to the local wild
fires. The kennel remains safe (though smokey). The nearest fire to us
is still over 20 miles away.
Fire crews have been battling the blazes and have kept Circle City from
burning (a checkpoint village for the Yukon Quest) as well as numerous
cabins and homes statewide.
Fire fighters are a hard core work force in Alaska. There are many
different divisions, organizations and crews. I am most familiar with
the Alaska Fire Service (AFS) whose organizational headquarters is in
Fairbanks. There are quite a few fire fighters who are our neighbors
here in Two Rivers. There are also crews that are composed of men and
women from Alaska bush villages - you will see crew names like: "Minto
#1" or "Allakaket #2". This season is so busy, however, that many crews
from the Lower 48 are here as well.
We are very in tune with Alaska's fire activity not only because of our
concern for our property and safety but also because Ray, our
brother-in-law (also known as "Sam's Daddy") is a fire fighter. He was
stationed in the village of Galena for much of the season. But, the
past few weeks he was fighting a fire near the Yukon River. Needless to
say, he has been working a lot, but is required by law to have 2 days
off after 21 days of work.
Thousands
Flee as California
Wildfires Spread
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:27 a.m. ET
November 15, 2008
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A wind-blasted wildfire tore through the city's
northern foothills early Saturday, sending thousands of residents
fleeing in the dark, forcing a hospital to evacuate and destroying an
untold number of homes.
The fire broke out late Friday in the foothill community of Sylmar on
the edge of the Angeles National Forest and quickly spread across 2,600
acres -- more than 4 square miles -- as it was driven by Santa Ana wind
gusting as high as 76 mph.
Officials said at least 10 homes were burned, but aerial footage from
television helicopters showed numerous mobile homes in flames. An
Associated Press photographer said a fire crew abandoned one mobile
home park that was burning out of control.
Part of the area's network of highways was shut down.
Officials ordered huge evacuations in the Sylmar and Porter Ranch
communities as the fire jumped two freeways, closing the highways and
forcing evacuees to take surface streets.
''Near hurricane winds made it very difficult for firefighters,'' Los
Angeles Fire deputy chief Mario Rueda said.
To the west, firefighters were still battling a separate wildfire that
destroyed more than 110 homes in Santa Barbara.
The Los Angeles blaze threatened at least 1,000 buildings, fire
spokeswoman Melissa Kelley said.
Flames struck the edge of the Olive View-UCLA Medical Center campus
shortly after midnight, causing an electricity outage that forced
officials to evacuate two dozen critical patients. About 200 other
patients stayed behind.
Several administrative buildings were damaged.
The hospital's power and backup generators failed, and emergency room
staff had to keep critical patients alive with hand powered
ventilators. Twenty-eight people, including 10 neonatal babies, were
rushed out by ambulance to another hospital.
''It was totally dark.'' said hospital spokeswoman Carla Nino. ''There
was dense smoke.''
Power was restored at the hospital after three hours.
Some people refused to leave their homes, grabbing water hoses to
defend their homes, but others left even before mandatory evacuation
orders were issued.
''I can see the smoke. It's terrible. I'm going to take my dog and
go,'' Dorothy Boyer told The Associated Press from her home late Friday.
More than 600 firefighters struggled to protect homes threatened by
flying embers. Because of the rough terrain in the forest, they were
relying on water-dropping helicopters to tackle flames. Authorities
said some aircraft were grounded during the night by the savage wind,
but they expected six airplanes and a dozen helicopters to attack the
fire during the day.
The shifting wind pushed the fire uphill toward the San Gabriel
Mountains and downhill toward homes, sometimes skipping across canyons.
It also jumped Interstate 5 and the 210 Freeway, forcing the California
Highway Patrol to shut down sections of both freeways and some
connecting roads.
If the fire continues marching west, it could be slowed by a fire break
that resulted from a wildfire which burned about 14,000-acres near
Porter Ranch last month, authorities said.
The cause of the fire was under investigation. One resident suffered
serious burns, Kelley said.
The blaze also charred habitat for the endangered California condor and
several hiking trails, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Stanton Florea
said.
About 80 miles to the west, an uncontained blaze in the Santa Barbara
community of Montecito had forced the evacuation of more than 5,400
homes since it started Thursday night, exploding through dry brush and
vast stands of oil-rich eucalyptus trees. About 800 firefighters were
battling the fire at the wealthy, celebrity-studded enclave, and they
were expected to make significant progress through Saturday morning,
said Santa Barbara city fire spokesman John Ahlman.
''There's plenty of hot material still left out there,'' he said. ''But
things could change in a hurry if the winds pick up.''
Several multimillion-dollar homes and a small college suffered major
damage in Montecito, a quaint and secluded area that has attracted
celebrities such as Rob Lowe, Jeff Bridges, Michael Douglas and Oprah
Winfrey.
The fire quickly consumed rows of luxury homes and parts of Westmont
College, a Christian liberal arts school, where students spent the
night in a gymnasium shelter.
''That whole mountain over there went up at once. Boom,'' said Bob
McNall, 70, who with his son and grandson saved their home by hosing it
down. ''The whole sky was full of embers. There was nothing that they
could do. It was just too much.''
Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum said up to 200 homes may have been
destroyed or damaged.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
At least 13 people were injured in Montecito. A 98-year-old man with
multiple medical problems died after being evacuated, but it was
unclear if his death was directly related to the blaze, Santa Barbara
County Sheriff-Coroner Bill Brown said.
Lowe, the actor, said he fled with his children as fire engulfed the
mountain, though their home didn't burn. The family found neighbors
trapped behind their automatic car gate, which was stuck because the
power was out. Lowe said he helped open the big gates.
''Embers were falling. Wind was 70 miles an hour, easily, and it was
just like Armageddon,'' Lowe told KABC-TV. ''You couldn't hear yourself
think.''
Montecito, known for its balmy climate and charming Spanish colonial
homes, has long attracted celebrities. The landmark Montecito Inn was
built in the 1920s by Charlie Chaplin, and the nearby San Ysidro Ranch
was the honeymoon site of John F. Kennedy in 1953.
Montecito suffered a major fire in 1977, when more than 200 homes
burned. A fire in 1964 burned about 67,000 acres and damaged 150 houses
and buildings.
TSUNAMI
Tsunami warning lifted; Waves reach Japan,
Russia
YAHOO
By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer
Feb. 28, 2010
TOKYO – The tsunami from Chile's deadly earthquake hit Japan's main
islands and the shores of Russia on Sunday, but the
smaller-than-expected waves prompted the lifting of a Pacific-wide
alert. Hawaii and other Pacific islands were also spared.
In Japan, where hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from
shorelines, the biggest wave following the magnitude-8.8 quake off
Chile hit the northern island of Hokkaido. There were no immediate
reports of damage from the four-foot (1.2-meter) wave, though some
piers were briefly flooded.
As it crossed the Pacific, the tsunami dealt populated areas —
including the U.S. state of Hawaii — only a glancing blow.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii issued a warning for 53
nations and territories, but lifted it Sunday, though some countries
were keeping their own watches in place as a precaution.
The tsunami raised fears the Pacific could fall victim to the type of
devastating waves that killed 230,000 people in the Indian Ocean in
2004 the morning after Christmas. During that disaster, there was
little-to-no warning and much confusion about the impending waves.
Officials said the opposite occurred after the Chile quake: They
overstated their predictions of the size of the waves and the threat.
"We expected the waves to be bigger in Hawaii, maybe about 50 percent
bigger than they actually were," said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist for
the warning center. "We'll be looking at that."
Japan, fearing the tsunami could gain force as it moved closer, put all
of its eastern coastline on tsunami alert and ordered hundreds of
thousands of residents in low-lying areas to seek higher ground as
waves generated by the Chilean earthquake raced across the Pacific at
hundreds of miles (kilometers) per hour.
Japan is particularly sensitive to the tsunami threat.
In July 1993 a tsunami triggered by a major earthquake off Japan's
northern coast killed more than 200 people on the small island of
Okushiri. A stronger quake near Chile in 1960 created a tsunami that
killed about 140 people in Japan.
Towns along northern coasts issued evacuation orders to 400,000
residents, Japanese public broadcaster NHK said. NHK switched to
emergency mode, broadcasting a map with the areas in most danger and
repeatedly urging caution.
As the wave continued its expansion across the ocean, Japan's
Meteorological Agency said waves of up to 10 feet (three meters) could
hit the northern prefectures of Aomori, Iwate and Miyagi, but the first
waves were much smaller.
People packed their families into cars, but there were no reports of
panic or traffic jams. Fishermen secured their boats, and police
patrolled beaches, using sirens and loudspeakers to warn people to
leave the area.
Elsewhere, the tsunami passed gently.
By the time the tsunami hit Hawaii — a full 16 hours after the quake —
officials had already spent the morning blasting emergency sirens,
blaring warnings from airplanes and ordering residents to higher ground.
The islands were back to paradise by the afternoon, but residents
endured a severe disruption and scare earlier in the day: Picturesque
beaches were desolate, million-dollar homes were evacuated, shops in
Waikiki were shut down, and residents lined up at supermarkets to stock
up on food and at gas stations.
Waves hit California, but barely registered amid stormy weather. A
surfing contest outside San Diego went on as planned.
In Tonga, where up to 50,000 people fled inland hours ahead of the
tsunami, the National Disaster Office had reports of a wave up to 6.5
feet (two meters) high hitting a small northern island, deputy director
Mali'u Takai said. There were no initial indications of damage.
Nine people died in Tonga last September when the Samoa tsunami slammed
the small northern island of Niuatoputapu, wiping out half of the main
settlement.
In Samoa, where 183 people died in the tsunami five months ago,
thousands remained Sunday morning in the hills above the coasts on the
main island of Upolu, but police said there were no reports of waves or
sea surges hitting the South Pacific nation.
At least 20,000 people abandoned their homes in southeastern Philippine
villages and took shelter in government buildings or fled to nearby
mountains overnight due to the tsunami scare. Provincial officials
scrambled to alert villagers and prepare contingency plans, according
to the National Disaster Coordinating Council.
Philippine navy and coast guard vessels, along with police, were
ordered to stand by for possible evacuation but the alert was lifted
late Sunday afternoon.
Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said there was no tsunami
risk for the archipelago as it was too far from the quake's epicenter.
On New Zealand's Chatham Islands earlier Sunday, officials reported a
wave measured at 6.6 feet (two meters).
Oceanographer Ken Gledhill said it was typical tsunami behavior when
the sea water dropped three feet (a meter) off North Island's east
coast at Gisborne and then surged back.
Several hundred people in the North Island coastal cities of Gisborne
and Napier were evacuated from their homes and from camp grounds, while
residents in low-lying areas on South Island's Banks Peninsula were
alerted to be ready to evacuate.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology canceled its tsunami warning Sunday
evening.
"The main tsunami waves have now passed all Australian locations," the
bureau said.
No damage was reported in Australia from small waves that were recorded
earlier in the day in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and Norfolk
Island, about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) northeast of Sydney.
New Zealand's Ministry of Civil Defense and Emergency Management
downgraded its tsunami warning to an advisory status, which it planned
to keep in place overnight.
Quake-triggered
tsunami begins
affecting Hawaii
YAHOO
5:07pm, Feb. 27, 2010
HILO, Hawaii – Scientists have confirmed that the tsunami triggered by
the earthquake in Chile has reached Hawaii.
The extent of the damage was not immediately clear, but the effects of
the tsunami were obvious.
Water began pulling away from shore off Hilo Bay on the Big Island just
before noon, exposing reefs and sending dark streaks of muddy, sandy
water offshore. Water later washed over Coconut Island, a small park
off the coast of Hilo.
The tsunami raced across the Pacific Ocean in terrifying force after
the magnitude-8.8 quake hit Chile. Officials in Hawaii had ample time
to get people out of the potential disaster area, and thousands were
evacuated.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further
information. AP's earlier story is below.
HILO, Hawaii (AP) — Waters have begun receding off the shores of Hawaii
in what appears to be the first sign of a tsunami.
The tsunami began affecting Hilo Bay on the Big Island just before noon
local time. Water began pulling away from shore, exposing reefs and
sending dark streaks of muddy, sandy water offshore. That is usually an
indication of the wave building strength before coming ashore.
The tsunami raced across the Pacific Ocean in terrifying force after
the magnitude-8.8 quake hit Chile. Officials in Hawaii had ample time
to get people out of the potential disaster area, and thousands were
evacuated.
Hawaii blasts sirens, warns of possible
tsunami
DAY
By JAYMES SONG, Associated Press Writer
Feb
27, 2010, 2:43 PM EST
EWA BEACH, Hawaii (AP) -- A
tsunami triggered by the Chilean
earthquake raced across the Pacific
Ocean on Saturday, threatening Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast as well
as hundreds of islands from the bottom of the planet to the top.
Sirens blared in Hawaii to alert residents to the potential waves. Nine
small planes equipped with loudspeakers flew along the shoreline,
warning beachgoers. On several South Pacific islands hit by a tsunami
last fall, police evacuated tens of thousands of coastal residents.
The first waves in Hawaii were expected to hit shortly after 11 a.m.
Saturday (4 p.m. EST; 2100 GMT) and measure roughly 8 feet (2.5 meters)
at Hilo. Most Pacific Rim nations did not immediately order
evacuations, but advised people in low-lying areas to be on the lookout.
Unlike other tsunamis in recent years in which residents had little to
if any warnings, emergency officials along the Pacific on Saturday had
hours to prepare and decide on evacuating residents.
"We've got a lot of things going for us," said Charles McCreery, the
director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, which issues warnings
to almost every country around the Pacific Rim and to most of the
Pacific island states. "We have a reasonable lead time.
In Hawaii, boats and people near the coast were being evacuated. Hilo
International Airport, located along the coast, was closed. In
Honolulu, residents lined up at supermarkets to stock up on water,
canned food and batteries. Cars lined up 15 long at several gas
stations.
"These are dangerous, dangerous events," said John Cummings, spokesman
for the Honolulu Emergency Management Department.
In Tonga, where nine people died in a Sept. 29 tsunami, police and
defense forces began evacuating tens of thousands of people from
low-lying coastal areas as they warned residents that waves about three
feet (one meter) high could wash ashore.
"I can hear the church bells ringing to alert the people," National
Disaster Office deputy director Mali'u Takai said.
On the island of Robinson Crusoe, a huge wave from the tsunami covered
half the village of San Juan Batista and three people were missing,
said Ivan de la Maza, the superintendent of Chile's principal mainland
port, Valparaiso.
A helicopter and a Navy frigate were enroute to the island to assist in
the search, he said.
A tsunami warning - the highest alert level - was in effect for Hawaii,
Guam, American Samoa, Samoa and dozens of other Pacific islands. An
advisory - the lowest level - includes California, Oregon, Washington
state, parts of Alaska, and coastal British Colombia.
British Columbia is hosting the Winter Olympic Games, but provincial
officials said the venues are not under threat.
U.S. President Barack Obama says the government is preparing for a
tsunami and he wants people in Hawaii, American Samoa and Guam to
follow the instructions of local authorities.
American Samoa Lt. Gov. Aitofele Sunia called on residents of shoreline
villages to move to higher ground. Police in Samoa issued a nationwide
alert to begin coastal evacuations. The tsunami is expected to reach
the islands Saturday morning.
In French Polynesia, tsunami waves up to 6 feet (2 meters) high swept
ashore, but no damage was immediately reported.
Meanwhile, disaster management officials in Fiji said they have been
warned to expect waves of as high as 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) to hit the
northern and eastern islands of the archipelago and the nearby Tonga
islands.
A lower-grade tsunami advisory was in effect for the coast of
California and an Alaskan coastal area from Kodiak to Attu islands.
Tsunami Center officials said they did not expect the advisory would be
upgraded to a warning.
Waves were likely to hit Asian, Australian and New Zealand shores
within 24 hours of Saturday's quake. A tsunami wave can travel at up to
600 mph, said Jenifer Rhoades, tsunami program manager at the National
Weather Service in Washington, DC.
Some Pacific nations in the warning area were heavily damaged by a
tsunami last year.
In last fall's tsunami, spawned by a magnitude-8.3 earthquake, also
killed 34 people in American Samoa and 183 in Samoa. Scientists later
said that wave was 46 feet (14 meters) high.
The tsunami warning center said the waves reached the islands so
quickly residents had only about 10 minutes to respond to its alert.
During the devastating December 2004 Indian ocean tsunami, there was
little to no warning and confusion about the impending waves. The
tsunami eradicated entire coastal communities the morning after
Christmas, killing 230,000 people.
The sirens in Hawaii will also be sounded again three hours prior to
the estimated arrival time.
Every TV was showing the news. Convenience stores and McDonald's and
Burger King restaurants shut down. A few people were on the famed
beach, including joggers on the sidewalk, but far fewer than normal.
Most seemed to be watching the ocean.
In Hilo, officials cordoned off the first three blocks next to the
beach. A few people watched the still ocean as a whale swam off the
coast, but streets were mostly empty as tsunami sirens blared. Gas
stations had long lines, some 10 cars deep.
The SackNSave grocery store was filled with people buying everything
from instant noodles to beer. Shelves with water were mostly empty,
save a few bottles.
"They are buying everything we got," clerk Memory Phillik said.
Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle declared a state of emergency. She said
leprosy patients from the Kalaupapa settlement on Molokai have been
moved to higher ground. Helicopters are standing by if the patients
need to be moved to a safer area.
Past South American earthquakes have had deadly effects across the
Pacific.
A tsunami after a magnitude-9.5 quake that struck Chile in 1960, the
largest earthquake ever recorded, killed about 140 people in Japan, 61
in Hawaii and 32 in the Philippines. It was about 3.3 to 13 feet (one
to four meters) in height, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.
Japanese public broadcaster NHK quoted earthquake experts as saying the
tsunami would likely be tens of centimeters (inches) high and reach
Japan in about 22 hours. A tsunami of 28 centimeters (11 inches) was
recorded after a magnitude-8.4 earthquake near Chile in 2001.
The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning
Saturday night for a "potential tsunami threat" to New South Wales
state, Queensland state, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island. Any wave
would not hit Australia until Sunday morning local time, it said.
New Zealand officials warned that "non-destructive" tsunami waves of
less than three feet could hit the entire east coast of the country's
two main islands and its Chatham Islands territory, some 300 miles east
of New Zealand.
Seismologist Fumihiko Imamura, of Japan's Tohoku University, told NHK
that residents near ocean shores should not underestimate the power of
a tsunami even though they may be generated by quakes on the other side
of the ocean.
"There is the possibility that it could reach Japan without losing its
strength," he said.
---
Associated Press writers Mark Niesse,
Audrey McAvoy, David Briscoe and Greg Small in Honolulu, Kristen
Gelineau in Sydney, Chris Havlik in Phoenix, Ray Lilley in Auckland,
New Zealand, Eric Talmadge in Tokyo, Alan Clendenning in Sao Paulo,
Brazil, and Charmaine Noronha in Toronto contributed to this report.
© 2010 The Associated Press. All
rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast,
rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
Tsunami
warning system worked, but not in time
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Joseph Weber and Audrey Hudson
Originally published 04:45 a.m., October 1, 2009,
updated 10:24 a.m., October 1, 2009
An early warning system introduced after the disastrous Christmas 2004
tsunami worked as planned, U.S. officials say, but failed to prevent
the deaths of more than 100 people in Samoa and American Samoa on
Tuesday because of the proximity of the originating earthquake.
It was the first practical test of the system, set up in response to
the 2004 wave that killed more than 220,000 people in the Indian Ocean
region, primarily in Indonesia.
Officials scrambled after an 8.0-magnitude earthquake shook just before
dawn Tuesday, and after a flurry of phone calls within the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Pacific Island offices,
the first warning was issued within 16 minutes, said NOAA spokeswoman
Delores Clark. She said that was well within the agency's range of 10
to 20 minutes for an acceptable warning. But because the quake
was so close to American Samoa, it was just four
minutes after the warning that a series of two-story-high waves crashed
over low-lying villages and heavily damaged the capital city of Pago
Pago.
Samoa's Deputy Prime Minister Misa Telefoni told Australia's AAP news
agency that the event happened so quickly there was little time to get
out of harm's way.
"The difficulty is that it now appears that the [earthquake] fault was
very, very close to us and we only had minutes rather than hours to
respond," Mr. Telefoni said.
"People were saying that there was the shake and the ocean went out
within five minutes, so that's pretty fast and that makes it extremely
difficult," he added. "With the location and the intensity, I don't
know [if] anything better could have been done."
Joey Cummings, a radio disc jockey at 93KHJ in Pago Pago, told the BBC
that as soon as the earthquake hit, the station told schools to
initiate tsunami warnings and transport children up the mountain.
Mrs. Clark said the earthquake hit at 6:48 a.m. local time, and the
Hawaii office issued its first warning at 7:04 a.m., 16 minutes later.
She said the tsunami hit roughly 20 minutes after the earthquake, or
four minutes after the official warning.
Mrs. Clark said the center's computers - like those at its twin, the
Alaska Tsunami Warning Center - constantly monitor seismic data for
earthquakes, then look at water levels to determine whether to send out
tsunami warnings or watches. NOAA said it has made a "significant
investment" in tsunami detection and warning systems since the 2004
disaster in Indonesia.
The agency increased the number of tsunami buoys around the world from
six to 39 at a cost of about $1 million each, Mrs. Clark said. She said
the expenditure "absolutely has helped" with tsunami detection.
She also said the Hawaii office and the International Tsunami
Information Center recently held a workshop on American Samoa, which
helped local officials know how to respond to the first signs of an
earthquake.
"That was very helpful," Mrs. Clark said.
As the official death toll rose Wednesday, dozens of people remained
missing among the destroyed buildings and mud-soaked streets.
Entire villages have reportedly been destroyed by the four waves that
rumbled over the island.
President Obama declared the island a disaster area, a designation that
sets recovery efforts in motion and makes federal funding immediately
available.
"Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to the families and loved
ones of those who lost their lives in the earthquake and tsunami in
American Samoa and the region," Mr. Obama said.
"I am closely monitoring these tragic events, and have declared a major
disaster for American Samoa, which will provide the tools necessary for
a full, swift and aggressive response. The Federal Emergency Management
Agency is in close and constant contact with emergency responders, and
the U.S. Coast Guard is fully supporting the deployment of resources to
those areas in need of immediate assistance," the president said.
"Going forward, we will continue to provide the resources necessary to
respond to this catastrophe, and we will keep those who have lost so
much in our thoughts and prayers," he added.
A team of National Guardsmen was headed Wednesday to the island aboard
a Coast Guard plane, and personnel from FEMA
were also en route with
emergency supplies.
The officials will assist in rescue-and-recover efforts - including
restoring power and cleaning up the heavily damaged southern part of
the island, which is coated in mud and filled with debris, including
boats and overturned cars. Roughly 85 guardsmen were preparing to
depart from Hawaii and will be
in American Samoa within the next 24 hours, National Guard spokesman
Walter Debany said Wednesday. He said the team, from the Hawaii
National Guard's 154th Airlift Wing,
will arrive in two or three C-17 cargo planes and will help local
officials with specialized duties such as communications and hazardous
materials.
"This is not an ad hoc effort," he said. "This is what they've trained
for. They are well-trained."
Water lines have been damaged, and the island's main power station is
down, so residents could be without electricity for a month, Samoa News
reported. The quake was centered about 120 miles south of Samoa
and American Samoa, a U.S. territory. Eni Faleomavaega, the
territory's non-voting delegate in Congress, was
unavailable Wednesday because he was returning home from Washington.
At Least 529 Die as Quake
Hits Indonesia Island
NYTIMES
By PETER GELLING and MARK McDONALD
October 2, 2009
PADANG, Indonesia — Padang was in chaos on Thursday — fires burning,
sirens blaring, dazed residents wandering the streets, thousands of
people reportedly trapped beneath collapsed buildings — after a
powerful earthquake struck just 30 miles off this city on the island of
Sumatra.
The quake, which struck Wednesday evening with a magnitude of 7.6, has
killed at least 529 people, according to the Social Affairs Ministry.
The death toll was almost certain to rise, officials said, as rescuers
dug further into collapsed hospitals, offices, homes and a school.
On Thursday morning, just as the airport was reopening and rescue teams
were setting to work, the city was rattled by another quake, this one
registering 6.6. The epicenter was 140 miles southeast of the Padang
quake, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Every building over three stories in Padang suffered damage from the
initial quake, and the city’s three main hospitals all collapsed. At
the biggest hopsital, Djamil, beds were pulled from the wreckage to
serve the injured. Soon, however, all the mattresses were soaked in
blood. Gloves, medicine bottles and bandages were strewn on the ground.
Dozens of bodies were piled nearby, some clothed, some not, and weeping
citizens searched the faces for missing relatives.
Late Thursday afternoon, a rumor based on local earthquake folklore
raced through Padang that another large quake was coming, and people
lined up by the thousands for gasoline and food.
Padang, a port city of 900,000, is on the west-central coast of
Sumatra, Indonesia’s largest island. The western coast is stippled with
dozens of volcanoes, and Padang also sits alongside the Sunda Trench,
part of the notorious Ring of Fire, the volatile network of volcanic
arcs and oceanic trenches that partly encircles the Pacific Basin. The
ring — and Sumatra in particular — is a zone of frequent earthquakes
and volcanic activity.
Elsewhere in the basin, on Tuesday, an underwater earthquake measuring
8.0 created a tsunami that sent massive walls of water crashing into
the islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.
Reports from government officials, the police, aid workers and news
agencies showed Thursday that at least 154 people had been killed by
the tsunami — 115 on Samoa, 30 on American Samoa and 9 on Tonga.
The prime minister of Samoa, Tuilaepa Sailele, while visiting one
inundated village, witnessed the discovery of two bodies — a mother and
a 12-year-old boy.
“It was shocking,” he said in an interview with Radio New Zealand. “The
devastation that has been caused is complete. All this was achieved in
10 minutes.”
There also were reports of 145 people injured, some of them critically,
and dozens of villages were demolished throughout the islands. Many
beachside resorts were wiped out, along with homes, boats and
businesses. Widespread devastation also was seen on television from the
American Samoan capital, Pago Pago.
“It is the worst one we have had,” said Lilo Malava, the police
commissioner of Samoa, in a telephone interview.
The tsunami — described by the governor of American Samoa as a series
of four major waves — arrived with so little warning that many
residents and tourists were caught unawares.
Filipo Ilaoa, deputy director of the American Samoa office in Honolulu,
said that the tsunami struck the territory’s coast in “a matter of
minutes” after the quake and that many residents would not have had
much time to run for higher ground.
“American Samoa is a small island, and most of the residents are around
the coastline,” he said. “There was no warning or anything at all. By
the time the alert was out of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, it
had already hit.”
New Zealand and Australia dispatched cargo flights and observation
planes to the Samoas. And President Obama authorized federal funds to
supplement local relief and recovery efforts on American Samoa, a
United States territory.
The epicenters of the Samoan and Indonesian quakes were located about
6,000 miles apart but brought back vivid memories of the horrific
tsunami that ravaged South Asia and Southeast Asia on December 26,
2004. Nearly a quarter-million people across the Indian Ocean region
were killed.
The undersea earthquake that caused the Samoan tsunami and the quake in
Indonesia on Wednesday evening, while from similar causes, were not
directly connected, according to Julie Dutton, a geophysicist at the
National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.
Both occurred in spots where one plate of the earth’s crust is
subducting, or sliding beneath another plate. In spots, the two plates
can become stuck until accumulating pressure leads to a sudden heaving
release of energy. Under the sea, if the quake is around a magnitude of
8.0 or stronger and the seabed shifts in a way that moves a lot of
water, the result is the high-energy waves of a tsunami.
The deeper the epicenter under the seabed, the less potential there is
for a tsunami. In Sumatra, the depth of the epicenter was 49.7 miles,
according to the United States Geological Survey. In Samoa, it was just
11.2 miles below the seabed. For coastal areas close to the epicenter
of a strong undersea earthquake, there is also little time for a formal
tsunami warning to be sounded, Ms. Dutton said.
The United States was concentrating its rescue efforts on American
Samoa, sending two cargo planes from Honolulu to the area on Wednesday,
said Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency.
“We’re looking at both an airlift and a sealift,” Mr. Fugate told
reporters in a conference call. “This will not be a short-term
response.”
Mr. Fugate said that it was clear the tsunami had caused a “major
disaster” but that it was too early for his office to provide or
confirm estimates of deaths, injuries or property damage.
Peter Gelling reported from Padang,
and Mark McDonald from Hong Kong. Reporting was contributed by
Norimitsu Onishi from Jakarta, Indonesia; Brian Knowlton from
Washington; Meraiah Foley from Sydney, Australia; Liz Robbins from New
York; and Andrew C. Revkin from New York.
Over 300 Die in Sumatra
and Samoas Quakes
NYTIMES
By LIZ ROBBINS
October 1, 2009
Devastation from two earthquakes thousands of miles apart spread
throughout Southeast Asia and the South Pacific on Wednesday, leaving
death, injuries and panic in their wake from Indonesia’s western coast
to the far-flung islands of Samoa and American Samoa.
On the island of Sumatra, in Indonesia, a 7.6-magnitude quake struck
Wednesday evening just 30 miles off the coast of the city of Padang,
killing at least 200 people and trapping thousands in buildings.
Indonesian television stations showed images of flattened hospitals,
hotels and houses, burning cars and terrified residents running in the
center of the city. Power and telecommunications were cut, complicating
rescue efforts when night fell.
A second earthquake struck western Indonesia on Thursday morning more
than 100 miles from the epicenter of the quake on Wednesday, The
Associated Press reported. There were no immediate reports of damage.
Early on Tuesday in the Samoas, an underwater 8.0 magnitude quake
produced a tsunami that struck with little warning after dawn, causing
at least 103 deaths and 145 injuries, destroying villages throughout
the islands. “It is the worst one we have had,” said Lilo Malava, the
police commissioner of Samoa, in a telephone interview.
The Red Cross of Samoa said that 79 bodies had been recovered by
Wednesday morning, and that 30 villages were hit hardest by the tsunami.
The epicenters of the quakes were located about 6,000 miles apart in an
unsettled region, and immediately brought back vivid memories of the
horrific tsunami that ravaged South Asia and Southeast Asia nearly five
years ago, killing hundreds of thousands of people.
The undersea earthquake that caused the Samoan tsunami and the latest
strong quake in Indonesia, while from similar causes, were not directly
connected, according to Julie Dutton, a geophysicist at the National
Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.
Both occurred in spots where one plate of the earth’s crust is
subducting, or sliding beneath another plate. In spots, the two plates
can become stuck until accumulating pressure leads to a sudden heaving
release of energy. Under the sea, if the quake is around a magnitude of
8.0 or stronger and the seabed shifts in a way that moves a lot of
water, the result is the high-energy waves of a tsunami.
The deeper the epicenter under the seabed, the less potential there is
for a tsunami. In Sumatra, the depth of the epicenter was 49.7 miles,
according to the United States Geological Survey. In Samoa, it was just
11.2 miles below the seabed. For coastal areas close to the epicenter
of a strong undersea earthquake, there is also little time for a formal
tsunami warning to be sounded, Ms. Dutton said.
That appeared to be the case in the Samoas, where successive waves of
earthquakes produced more damage throughout the day on Tuesday. The
United States was concentrating its rescue efforts on American Samoa,
sending two cargo planes from Honolulu to the area on Wednesday, said
Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“We’re looking at both an airlift and a sealift,” Mr. Fugate told
reporters in a conference call. “This will not be a short-term
response.”
Mr. Fugate said that it was clear the tsunami had caused a “major
disaster” but that it was too early for his office to provide or
confirm estimates of deaths, injuries or property damage.
On Tuesday, officials said that at least 24 people had been killed, and
the territory’s governor, Togiola T. A. Tulafono, said in a news
conference that the worst damage had been caused by the second and
third waves in a series of four. Widespread devastation was also
reported in the territory’s capital, Pago Pago.
The Samoan quake struck below the ocean about 120 miles southwest of
American Samoa and 125 miles south of Samoa, according to the
geological survey.
Filipo Ilaoa, deputy director of the American Samoa office in Honolulu,
said that the tsunami struck the territory’s coast in “a matter of
minutes” after the quake and that many residents would not have had
much time to run for higher ground.
“American Samoa is a small island, and most of the residents are around
the coastline,” he said. “There was no warning or anything at all. By
the time the alert was out of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, it
had already hit.”
In Samoa, the authorities were expecting rescue assistance and relief
aid from New Zealand and Australia, Mr. Malava said.
In Sumatra on Wednesday, officials feared the death toll was likely to
rise. Priyadi Kardono, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management
Agency, said Thursday that at least 200 people had died. But the toll
was almost certain to increase, given the number of people who the
authorities said were still trapped in the rubble of buildings.
Reporting was contributed by
Norimitsu Onishi from Jakarta, Indonesia; Brian Knowlton from
Washington; Meraiah Foley from Sydney, Australia; and Andrew C. Revkin
from New York.
8.0
magnitude quake generates tsunami
off Samoa islands
YAHOO
September 29, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A powerful 8.0 magnitude earthquake in the
Pacific off the Samoa islands region generated a tsunami and waves of
more than five feet had already been observed, U.S. government agencies
said on Tuesday. An official of the U.S. National Park Service
said there had been deaths in American Samoa, but there was no word on
how many people had died.
A tsunami was observed at Apia, Western Samoa, and at Pago Pago,
American Samoa, according to the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning
Center, a branch of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. The waves at Pago Pago were 5.1 feet above normal
sea level, according to the Pacific Western Tsunami Warning Center in
Hawaii.
The center earlier issued a tsunami warning for New Zealand, American
Samoa and other small Pacific islands.
American Samoa is a tiny U.S. territory that lies about halfway between
Hawaii and New Zealand. It is home to about 65,000 people. Holly
Bundock, spokeswoman for the National Park Service's Pacific West
Region in Oakland California, said "I would say we're alarmed," adding
the service had heard from Mike Reynolds, superintendent of the
National Park of American Samoa. Reynolds told a Yellowstone
dispatch operator that four tsunami waves, each 15 to 20 feet high,
reaching half-mile to mile (1.6 miles) inland on island of Tutuila,
where Pago Pago is.
"The National Park of American Samoa visitor center and its offices
appear to be destroyed completely," Bundock said.
Reynolds reported deaths but had no confirmation of numbers, she said.
"He's completely cut off from the rest of the island," Bundock
said. In the island nation of Western Samoa, some residents told
Radio New Zealand they had felt a big jolt and were recommended by
authorities to move to higher ground.
"Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated. It may have been
destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicenter and could also
be a threat to more distant coasts," the Pacific warning center said.
Nathan Becker, an official at the center, told MSNBC a tsunami wave can
dissipate or grow larger and go all the way across the ocean. "This is
why we've issued a warning for a wide area," he said.
The epicenter of the quake was located 120 miles southwest of American
Samoa, a remote Pacific island, the U.S. Geological Survey. The USGS
earlier said the quake measured 7.9 magnitude. It struck at a depth of
11.2 miles.
HAWAII MONITORS SITUATION
Hawaii was monitoring the situation. CNN said that if a tsunami
hit Hawaii, it would arrive at about 7:18 EDT. Chevron Corp said
it was monitoring the tsunami threat to Hawaii, where the company has a
54,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery near Honolulu.
"We are currently monitoring the situation via updates provided by
local authorities," said Chevron spokesman Sean Comey."
Tesoro Corp did not immediately reply to messages about its 93,500 bpd
refinery at Ewa Beach, also on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Both
refineries provide jet fuel to commercial airlines and the U.S.
military complex at Pearl Harbor as well motor fuels.
Tsunami
Warning After Asian Quake
NYTIMES
By REUTERS
Filed at 4:24 p.m. ET
August 10, 2009
WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - A massive magnitude 7.6 quake struck in
the Indian Ocean off India's Andaman Islands, triggering a tsunami
watch for India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh, the U.S.
Geological Survey reported on Monday.
The USGS said the quake, initially reported as a magnitude 7.7, was
20.6 miles (33 km) deep and was centered 160 miles (260 km) north of
Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami watch for the
region.
New
Zealand Quake Sparks Tsunami Warnings
DAY
By REUTERS
July 15, 2009, Filed at 8:06 a.m. ET
WELLINGTON/SYDNEY (Reuters) - New Zealand and Australia issued tsunami
warnings on Wednesday after an earthquake struck the south of New
Zealand, causing minor damage but no injuries.
Australia's weather bureau said a small tsunami had been recorded in
New Zealand and another was detected in the Tasman Sea heading toward
Australia's southeast coast.
"Our deep ocean buoy in the southern Tasman Sea indicates a wave
traveling across the Tasman. Because of the depth of the water we can
not tell the wave height," Chris Ryan, from Australia's Tsunami Warning
Center, told Reuters.
The tsunami was not expected to be a destructive wave, but was a
"marine threat" and could cause big seas, strong currents and coastal
flooding, said Ryan. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology issued a
statement advising people in low lying coastal areas to move to higher
ground and for people to get out of the water.
"People in areas with threat to land inundation and flooding are
strongly advised by emergency authorities to go to higher ground or at
least one kilometer inland," the bureau said.
New Zealand also issued a tsunami warning but later canceled it.
The
tsunami warnings were sparked by a shallow quake in New Zealand's
remote south. The Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences
said
the tremor, measuring 6.6 magnitude, struck at 9.22 p.m. (0922 GMT). An
aftershock in the same area measuring 6.1 was reported about 20 minutes
later.
The government institute said it was centered in the remote and
unpopulated Fiordland region, about 150 km (95 miles) north west of the
country's most southern city, Invercargill. It was measured at around
five km (three miles) below ground level.
Local civil defense officials issued a warning about a "potential
tsunami" for the region, because of conflicting reports about the
quake's size. The Japanese meteorological agency put the preliminary
magnitude at 7.8, prompting the Pacific tsunami center in Hawaii to
issue a warning.
"There was a small wave, but it was not damage causing ... people
probably wouldn't have noticed it among the other waves," Civil Defense
spokesman Vince Cholewa told Reuters.
Local media said the quake was felt widely throughout the lower South
Island as a long, rolling motion, sending goods falling from shop
shelves, but said no injuries were reported.
"It was quite a large motion, the whole house was moving, the door was
moving in the doorframe, and the fence posts were moving," Invercargill
resident Simon Wilson told Radio New Zealand.
The region, famed for its natural beauty of high mountains, wilderness
and deep fiords or inlets, is known for strong earthquake
activity. A
force 6.7 quake struck deep out to sea in October 2007, and a 7.2
tremor was recorded off the coast in August 2003. New Zealand
records
around 14,000 earthquakes a year.
The last fatal earthquake in the geologically active country, caught
between the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates, was in 1968
when an earthquake measuring 7.1 killed three people on the South
Island's West Coast.
The whole country has
been decapitated 
