The Indian Panorama

Tag: USGS

  • Over 21,000 dead from quake in Turkey and Syria

    Over 21,000 dead from quake in Turkey and Syria

    ISTANBUL (TIP): More than 21,000 people have died in Turkey and Syria after earthquakes swept through the region Monday. Rescue workers are now racing against time to pull survivors from the rubble of collapsed buildings in freezing winter conditions. At least 78,124 people were injured across both countries, according to authorities.
    The 7.8 magnitude quake struck 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) east of Nurdagi, in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, at a depth of 24.1 kilometers (14.9 miles), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
    The natural disaster is one of the deadliest earthquakes in two decades.
    Nations around the world working to get aid to Syria: France on Thursday, February 9, pledged to give 12 million euros ($12.92 million) to Syrians impacted by the quake, the foreign ministry said. The aid will be channeled through the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations “working directly with affected populations in all of the areas struck by the earthquake,” it said. Many Western nations have refused to send aid directly to the Syrian regime, which is under sanctions. The United Kingdom pledged an additional 3 million pounds ($3.64 million) in funding to the White Helmets to support rescue and emergency relief operations in northwest Syria. Britain has so far given a total of 3.8 million pounds ($4.62 million) to the White Helmets, a volunteer organization of humanitarian responders. The United States will provide $85 million for humanitarian assistance in Turkey and Syria. Indian Army’s field hospital has started functioning in quake-ravaged Turkey. India has sent more than 250 personnel, specialized equipment and other relief material amounting to more than 135 tons to Turkey on five C-17 IAF aircraft.
    UN working to open more pathways to deliver aid to Syria: A UN aid convoy crossed from Turkey into northwestern Syria on Thursday, February 9, for the first time since the earthquake hit. The six trucks carrying shelter items and Non-Food Items (NFI) drove through the Bab Al Hawa border crossing, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he is open to the idea of delivering aid via additional border crossings, other than the Bab al-Hawa, which is the only humanitarian aid corridor approved by the United Nations between Turkey and rebel-held areas of northern Syria.

    (Agencies)

  • 6.5 quake hits China’s Xinjiang region, one dead

    6.5 quake hits China’s Xinjiang region, one dead

    BEIJING (TIP): A powerful 6.5-magnitude quake rocked a mountainous area of far western China Nov 25 night, with one person killed when a house collapsed in a region often plagued with seismic activity.

    The tremor struck southern Xinjiang, a vast region bordering central Asia, at a relatively shallow depth of 12 kilometres (seven miles), the US Geological Survey said.

    The quake hit near the Tajik border and some 170 kilometres west of the Chinese city of Kashgar.

    One villager died due to a house collapse while six buildings suffered damage in the sparsely-populated area, the state news agency Xinhua said, citing local authorities

    Pakistani authorities said the quake had been felt in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the National Disaster Management Authority said. There were no reports of damage there.

    The USGS said only a relatively small area would have perceived the shaking to be strong. (AP)

     

     

  • Strong 6.0-magnitude quake hits off Japan coast; no tsunami

    Strong 6.0-magnitude quake hits off Japan coast; no tsunami

    TOKYO (TIP): A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Japan’s southwest coast today, the US Geological Survey said, but local authorities said there was no danger of a tsunami.

    The quake hit at 11:39 am (0239 GMT) off the coast of Japan’s main Honshu island, at a location about 350 kilometres southwest of Tokyo, USGS and the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

    The quake was measured at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometres.

    No damage or injuries were immediately reported though heavy shaking forced some of the country’s bullet trains to temporarily stop running, public broadcaster NHK reported.

    Japan sits at the junction of four tectonic plates and experiences around 20 percent of the world’s most powerful earthquakes.

    But rigid building codes and strict enforcement mean even powerful tremors frequently do little damage.

    A massive undersea quake that hit in March 2011 sent a tsunami barrelling into Japan’s northeast coast, leaving 18,500 people dead or missing, and

    sending several reactors into meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant in the worst atomic accident in a generation.

  • South Texas, Dallas area have minor earthquakes

    South Texas, Dallas area have minor earthquakes

    DALLAS (TIP): Minor earthquakes have been recorded in the Dallas area and hundreds of miles away in South Texas but officials had no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The U.S. Geological Survey says a 2.9 magnitude quake happened at 3:21 a.m. CDT Thursday in North Texas. The quake was centered 2 miles north of Irving. USGS reports a 3.2 magnitude quake happened at 11:53 a.m. Wednesday and was centered 2 miles southeast of Charlotte. The area is 41 miles south-southwest of San Antonio. Emergency officials in Dallas and Atascosa counties say they had no reports of quake damage or people being hurt.

  • Earthquake of 6.9 magnitude strikes western China

    Earthquake of 6.9 magnitude strikes western China

    BEIJING (TIP):
    A strong and shallow 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck China’s far western region of Xinjiang on February 12, but in a sparsely populated area, the US Geological Survey said. The tremor was only 12.5 kilometres (eight miles) deep but hit about 270 kilometres east-southeast of Hotan, the USGS said, in an extremely remote area. China’s Earthquake Networks Centre gave the magnitude of the afternoon quake as 7.3. Another tremor of magnitude 5.7 struck five minutes later, five kilometres deep, followed by a series of aftershocks of up to 4.2 magnitude, it said.

    “We were at the office at the time and felt strong shaking, the windows were rattling,” a reporter in Keriya county near the epicentre told state broadcaster CCTV, adding that few people lived in the mountainous area and there were no reports yet of casualties or damage. CCTV reported that Hotan was not seriously affected, while several people in the city told AFP they felt less than a minute of shaking. “The earthquake lasted less than one minute, it was not strong, there are no buildings collapsed,” said one resident by phone. An expert told CCTV that the affected area often experienced earthquakes but was thinly populated, so the impact was likely to be limited.

    A previous 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck the same county in March 2008, affecting 40,000 people, destroying 200 homes and causing an overall 10 million yuan ($1.7 million) in damage. China is regularly hit by earthquakes, especially its mountainous western and southwestern regions. A magnitude 6.6 earthquake in Sichuan province in the southwest killed about 200 people last April, five years after almost 90,000 people died when a huge tremor struck the same province. Twin 5.6 and 5.9 magnitude quakes killed at least 95 people in the northwest province of Gansu last July. But according to the USGS website, there was a 65 percent chance the latest quake had not caused any fatalities. “There is a low likelihood of casualties,” it said.

    Once a link on the Silk Road, Xinjiang covers 1.7 million square kilometres (660,000 square miles) — a sixth of China’s territory. It is home to the country’s mostly Muslim Uighur minority, and has seen sporadic attacks on police amid complaints by the ethnic group of religious and cultural repression. Beijing has justified tighter security in the area to stem a separatist movement it claims has links with foreign terrorist groups. Xinjiang is rich in natural resources, containing roughly 30 per cent of China’s onshore oil and gas deposits and 40 per cent of its coal, according to the official website china.org.mtp

  • 7 dead, 45 injured in earthquake near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant

    7 dead, 45 injured in earthquake near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant

    TEHRAN (TIP): A powerful earthquake has hit Iran, killing seven and injuring a further 45, IRNA state news agency reported. The disaster’s epicenter was in an area 62km north east of Bushehr, according to the USGS, where Iran has its only nuclear power plant. The head of Iran’s Crisis Management organization, Hassan Qadami, confirmed the initial 30 casualties to IRNA. However, Bushehr’s Governor, Fereydoon Hasanvand, updated the figure to 45 on November 28 night. He added that ‘total calm’ had settled in the area. Fars news agency placed the death toll higher, at eight, adding that helicopters would be posted to the area on Friday to assess the extent of the damage. “There were some houses and electricity poles damaged.

    Rescue teams have been dispatched,” local governor Alireza Khorani told Fars before full news of the wounded emerged. Tremors were registered at a depth of 16.4 kilometers and some 14 kilometers from the nearest city of Borazjan in Bushehr Province. While USGS measured the quake at 5.6, the local Seismological Center of Tehran University’s Geophysics Institute has said that the earthquake measured 5.7 on the Richter scale. Social media pages in Saudi Arabia have said that tremors from the quake were felt in the kingdom’s eastern province, across the Gulf from Iran, Reuters reported. No damage to the nuclear plant in nearby Bushehr has been reported. Bushehr, Iran’s only power-producing nuclear reactor, suffered damage caused by earthquakes which struck Iran in April and May.

    Cracks of several meters long reportedly appeared in at least one section of the structure, according to diplomats from countries monitoring Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran has not denied or confirmed this information. Following the quakes, one of which was 7.7, and the other measured 6.2 on the Richter scale, Iran gave assurances that the plant was technically sound and was built to withstand quakes up to magnitude 8. The Bushehr nuclear power plant – the first civilian nuclear plant in the Middle East – was launched in 2011 under a contract for finishing the plant that Iran and the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy signed in 1995. Bushehr has no link to nuclear weapons production and cannot be used to develop such technology.

  • Seven killed, dozens hurt in Afghanistan earthquake

    Seven killed, dozens hurt in Afghanistan earthquake

    JALALABAD (TIP): Seven people were killed, dozens injured and many homes destroyed when a powerful earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, officials said. The quake, measured at a magnitude of 5.6 by the US Geological Survey, sent people rushing from their homes in worst-hit areas and was felt in the Afghan capital Kabul and in Islamabad in neighbouring Pakistan. It struck at 0925 GMT at a depth of 62 kilometres (39 miles), with its epicentre 24 kilometres northwest of the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad near the Pakistani border, the USGS said in a revised update. Six people died in Nangarhar province of which Jalalabad is the capital, said provincial spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, and 75 people were injured.

    Forty of them were given first aid and the rest admitted to hospital for further treatment. “We are still in the process of getting information from the affected areas. Among the dead are some children,” Abdulzai told AFP. One person was killed and one injured in neighbouring Kunar province and many homes were destroyed, said provincial spokesman Wasefullah Wasef.

  • Five Dead As 8.0 Quake Off Solomons Sparks Pacific Tsunami

    Five Dead As 8.0 Quake Off Solomons Sparks Pacific Tsunami

    HONIARA (TIP): A major 8.0magnitude earthquake jolted theSolomon Islands on feb 6 with smalltsunami waves buffeting Pacificcoastlines, leaving at least five peopledead and dozens of homes damagedor destroyed.A quake-generated wave of justunder one metre (three feet) reachedparts of the Solomons, and Vanuatuand New Caledonia also reportedrising sea levels, before a region-widetsunami alert was lifted.Sirens were heard in Fiji, localssaid. “Chaos in the streets of Suva aseveryone tries to avoid the tsunami!!”tweeted Ratu Nemani Tebana fromthe Fiji capital.Quake-prone Japan, which was hitby a huge tsunami in March 2011 thatkilled more than 19,000 people, wasalso on edge with the nationalweather agency warning that a smalltsunami could still come ashore.

    The Pacific Tsunami WarningCenter cancelled its regional alert forPacific-island nations at 0350 GMT,about two and a half hours after thepowerful quake struck at 0112 GMTnear the Santa Cruz Islands in theSolomons.”We can report five dead and threeinjured. One of the dead was a malechild, three were elderly women andone an elderly man,” Chris Rogers, anurse at Lata Hospital in the SantaCruz Islands, told AFP.Solomons Prime Minister GordonDarcy Lilo’s office said four villageson the Santa Cruz Islands had beenhit.”Latest reports suggest thatbetween 60 to 70 homes have beendamaged by waves crashing into atleast four villages on Santa CruzIslands,” Lilo’s spokesman GeorgeHerming told AFP.”At this stage, authorities are stilltrying to establish the exact numberand extent of damage.Communication to (the) Santa CruzIslands is difficult due to theremoteness of the islands.

    “It was not immediately apparentwhether the victims died in the quakeor tsunami.Solomon Islands Red Crosssecretary general Joanne Zolevekesaid she too had been told at leastthree villages were hit, with houseswashed away.”In the Solomon Islands when wetalk about villages there can beanything from 10 to 30 houses,” shesaid.The US Geological Survey said thequake struck the Santa Cruz Islands,which have been rocked by a series ofstrong tremors over the past week, ata depth of 28.7 kilometres (18 miles).The USGS first gave the depth at 5.8kilometres.Several powerful aftershocks werealso recorded.

    “Sea level readings indicate atsunami was generated,” the HawaiibasedPacific centre said after the 8.0quake, before lifting its tsunami alertfor several island nations.Australia’s earthquake monitoringagency and the Pacific centre said atsunami wave was measured at 91centimetres, at Lata, on the mainSanta Cruz island of Ndende.Locals in the Solomons capitalHoniara, 580 kilometres (360 miles)from the epicentre, said the quakewas not felt there.Lata Hospital director of nursingAugustine Bilve said some patientswere evacuated to higher ground toprepare for any injured from thevillages along the coast.

    “There was continuous shaking inLata but no damaged buildings here,”he said.”We were told that after theshaking, waves came to the villages.”In 2007 a tsunami following an 8.0-magnitude earthquake killed at least52 people in the Solomons and leftthousands homeless. The quake wasso powerful that it lifted an island andpushed out its shoreline by dozens ofmetres.The Solomons are part of the “Ringof Fire”, a zone of tectonic activityaround the Pacific Ocean that issubject to earthquakes and volcaniceruptions.Before it was lifted, the tsunamiwarning was in effect for the SolomonIslands, Vanuatu, Nauru, Papua NewGuinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia,Kosrae, Fiji, Kiribati, and Wallis andFutuna.