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The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 M earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately 25 km (16 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. An estimated three million people were affected by the quake; the Haitian Government reported that an estimated 230,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless. They also estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged.

The earthquake caused major damage in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and other settlements in the region. Many notable landmark buildings were significantly damaged or destroyed, including the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail. Among those killed were Archbishop of Port-au-Prince Joseph Serge Miot, and opposition leader Micha Gaillard. The headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), located in the capital, collapsed, killing many, including the Mission’s Chief, Hédi Annabi.

Many countries responded to appeals for humanitarian aid, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel. Communication systems, air, land, and sea transport facilities, hospitals, and electrical networks had been damaged by the earthquake, which hampered rescue and aid efforts; confusion over who was in charge, air traffic congestion, and problems with prioritisation of flights further complicated early relief work. Port-au-Prince’s morgues were quickly overwhelmed with many tens of thousands of bodies having to be buried in mass graves. As rescues tailed off, supplies, medical care and sanitation became priorities. Delays in aid distribution led to angry appeals from aid workers and survivors, and looting and sporadic violence were observed.

On 22 January the United Nations noted that the emergency phase of the relief operation was drawing to a close, and on the following day the Haitian government officially called off the search for survivors.

Other Information

• Date : 16:53:10, 12 January 2010 (−05:00), 21:53:10, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
• Magnitude : 7.0
• Depth : 13 km (8.1 miles)
• Epicenter location : 18°27′25″N 72°31′59″W / 18.457°N 72.533°W / 18.457; -72.533
• Countries or regions affected : Haiti
• Max. intensity : MM X
• Tsunami : Yes
• Casualties : 92,000 – 230,000 deaths (6th deadliest earthquake)

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The 2010 Chile earthquake happened off the coast of the Maule Region of Chile, on February 27, 2010, with a magnitude of what was originally reported to be between 8.3 and 8.5 magnitude, and has since been upgraded to a possible 8.8 magnitude. It was the strongest earthquake affecting Chile since the magnitude 9.5 1960 Valdivia earthquake, and the strongest earthquake worldwide since the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

The 8.8 magnitude of the 2010 Chilean quake may also be compared with the 7.0 magnitude of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake.

The earthquake was also felt in the Chilean capital Santiago as well as in many Argentinean cities.

Its epicenter was offshore from the Maule Region, approximately 8 km (5.0 miles) west of Curanipe and 115 km north-northeast of Chile’s second largest city, Concepción. Other cities exposed to Mercalli intensity scale intensity VIII (Destructive) shaking were Arauco, Lota and Constitución. The quake occurred at 03:34 local time, and is reported to have lasted 10–30 seconds.

Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile, has declared a “state of catastrophe”. Warnings were issued in 53 countries.

Other Information

• Date : 27 February 2010 06:34:17 UTC (2010-02-27T06:34:17)
• Magnitude : 8.8
• Depth : 35 kilometres (22 mi)
• Epicenter location : Coordinates: 35°50′46″S 72°43′08″W / 35.846°S 72.719°W / -35.846; -72.719
• Countries or regions affected : Chile, Maule Region, Biobío Region
• Casualties : 78 deaths reported

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• Highway Collapsed : 2010 Chile Earthquake
• Tsunami advisory canceled after 7.0 earthquake off Okinawa
• Pacific under tsunami threat after massive 8.8 quake strikes Chile
• Magnitude 6.9 earthquake shakes southern Japan, tsunami warning issued

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Vehicles that were driving along a highway that collapsed during the earthquake near Santiago are seen overturned on the asphalt Saturday Feb. 27, 1010 after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Chile early Saturday. The quake hit 200 miles (325 kilometers) southwest of the capital and the epicenter was just 70 miles (115 kilometers) from Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city.

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More than a day after a freight train derailed and exploded on the Italian coast, officials raised the death toll to 17, including two small children and an unidentified man who subsequently died of severe burns, news agencies reported.

The 14-car train carrying liquefied petroleum gas derailed in Viareggio around midnight on Monday, engulfing a neighborhood in flames. More than 34 people injured, 12 of them in serious condition.

The train was traveling south through coastal Tuscany when the axle on the first car broke, officials said. The train ran off the tracks and exploded.

“We saw a ball of fire rising up to the sky,” one witness, Gianfranco Bini, told The Associated Press. Mr. Bini lives in a building overlooking the station. “We heard three big rumbles, like bombs. It looked like war had broken out.”

The flames ravaged entire streets, and five buildings collapsed, killing some residents as they slept.

“It was an apocalypse,” a survivor said on Italian television, according to Reuters. “All we could smell was gas and things burning, and all we could see was flames.”

Three children were pulled alive from the rubble, the Italian news media reported.

More than 1,000 people were evacuated, and about 100 were left homeless, the mayor of Viareggio, Luca Lunardini, told news agencies.

Accusations of poor infrastructure and questions about why dangerous materials were being shipped through residential areas immediately added to the political pressures on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He was met with boos and cries of “go home” when he arrived in Viareggio on Tuesday afternoon.

At a news conference, Mr. Berlusconi said that the government would soon call a state of emergency, and that it would also “guarantee the reconstruction of 100 percent of the houses destroyed,” Italy’s ANSA news agency reported.

The accident comes a week before the country is expected to host world leaders for the Group of 8 summit meeting, to be held in another disaster zone, L’Aquila. An earthquake there on April 6 killed nearly 300 people and left 65,000 homeless.

Guido Bertolaso, Italy’s senior civil protection official, called the episode one of the “worst tragedies” to occur in the Italian train system, ANSA reported. In 2005, 17 people died in a collision between a passenger and freight train.

Raffaele Gargiulo, a police spokesman for the nearby city of Lucca, told The A.P. that the bodies of the dead were so badly burned that identifications would be difficult.

The regional spokesman for a railway union told ANSA that Tuesday’s accident was the fifth train-related accident in Tuscany this month. Several other trains either derailed or went off their tracks, though there were no reported fatalities or injuries.

Railway unions called for a one-hour halt in train traffic for Wednesday, Reuters reported, out of respect for the dead and to draw attention to the need for higher safety standards.

Death Toll Rises to 17 in Italy Train Derailment

Continue reading »]]> A powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook Honduras in the early hours of Thursday, killing a teenage boy as it knocked down homes and briefly sparking a tsunami alert for Central America’s Caribbean coast.

The quake struck off Honduras’ northeast coast near the scuba-diving resort island of Roatan and damaged buildings across the north of the largely impoverished country of some 7 million people.

Emergency services officials said a 15-year-old boy died in the town of La Lima, about 100 miles north of the capital Tegucigalpa, when the ceiling of his house collapsed.

Honduras has few high-rise buildings but several places reported collapsed homes and damaged churches.

The earthquake struck at 2:24 a.m. local time (4:24 a.m. EDT) when most people were asleep.

Security guard Pedro Ramirez, 52, was in his truck outside an office building in Tegucigalpa when the tremor hit.

“I felt the car rock and I started to hear little bits of debris from the building next door hitting the roof,” he said. “It was frightening because it was shaking a lot. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

The earthquake hit 39 miles northeast of Roatan, the biggest of the country’s three picturesque Bay Islands where snorkelers and divers come to see dolphins and a big coral reef. It had a shallow depth of 6.2 miles.

A 7.1 magnitude quake can cause serious damage over a wide area. Thursday’s tremor followed two moderate quakes in nearby Mexico in the past few weeks.

On Roatan, rescue officials said the quake had knocked out power and caused minor damage to buildings. People were outside their houses and being urged to keep away from the shore.

A tsunami watch was issued for Honduras, Guatemala and Belize, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said, but it was lifted about an hour later.

In the town of Santa Barbara, in northwest Honduras, a handful of houses collapsed and the ceiling of an old colonial church fell in. The tremor sent people running into the street and the power was cut in some areas, Honduran radio said.

Houses also fell down in the port of Puerto Cortes while fires broke out in the northern business city of San Pedro Sula. A bridge collapsed in the city of El Progreso and televisions crashed to the floor in homes in La Lima, officials said.

The quake was initially reported having a 7.4 magnitude.

Honduras has a limited tourist industry with most visitors attracted to its Bay islands off the world’s second-largest coral reef that teems with fish, sponges, rays and turtles.

Major quake off Honduras kills one, damages homes

Continue reading »]]> Twenty-two people were killed and seven others remain missing as typhoon “Emong” (international name: Chan-Hom) is leaving the Philippines after devastating the country’s northeastern coasts, disaster relief authorities said yesterday.

The tyhoon, locally known as Emong, has also displaced nearly 10,000 local residents since it slammed into the Northern Luzon region late Thursday, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said in its latest bulletin.

According to the official report, low-lying villages and towns were flooded, a boat capsized, a dike collapsed and in parts of the typhoon-hit areas roads and bridges remain unusable.

The weather forecast said the typhoon is moving northeast at a speed of 11 kph with maximum sustained winds of 55 kph. It is forecasted to arrive some 520 kilometers northeast of Aparri town of northern Cagayan province yesterday evening and head towards further north.

At least 22 killed as typhoon ‘Emong’ leaves

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The Eastern Dam collapsed after reservoir overflowed due to heavy rains. Health Officials estimates death toll to reach 100.

Rescue workers are still searching for survivors, the tragedy already claimed 52 victims. Aerial photos shows an enormous hole on the dam.

Emergency crews evacuated hundreds of survivors, including terrified children weeping with fear, from the flood zone. Others paddled out on their own makeshift rafts.

Indonesia continues search after dam burst kills 52

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Rescue workers are searching for up to four people still missing after a building housing archives collapsed on Tuesday in the German city of Cologne.

Witnesses said there may have been two people inside a car parked outside the archive and another two in a nearby building that subsequently collapsed.

The area must be stabilised before rescue teams can move into the rubble.

Cracks and groaning noises had alerted staff and visitors at the archive, all of whom escaped before it collapsed.

Work was being carried out nearby on a new underground railway, but the company involved said there had been no recent tunnelling.

‘Spreading cracks’

Gregor Timmer, a spokesman for the city of Cologne, said on Wednesday morning that rescue workers had to assume that between two and four people were still missing underneath the rubble of the archive and two neighbouring buildings.

“There are reports on two inhabitants of the building next to the archive that collapsed and two people who were inside a car in front of the building at the time of the tragedy,” he told the Reuters news agency.

Up to nine people were initially reported missing after the collapse, but several have since contacted city officials, police said.

The archive building dated from the 1970s and contained 65,000 original documents, some of them dating back more than 1,000 years.

There has been no word on the condition of the collection, which includes manuscripts by Communist philosophers Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels and items left to the city by figures such as the Nobel Prize-winning author, Heinrich Boell.

Mr Timmer said rescuers needed to stabilise the remains of the structures before moving into the rubble to determine whether anyone was trapped inside.

“The buildings to the left and right of the collapse site are severely damaged and are in danger of partly falling down. That is why rescuers are currently unable to step onto the rubble,” he added.

On Tuesday evening, concrete was pumped into the ground to firm it up. Two hundred rescue workers are still at the scene.

The six-storey building collapsed at about 1400 local time (1300 GMT), bringing down two other neighbouring buildings.

One witness said the scene resembled a Hollywood movie as cracks slowly spread up the building’s facade before it collapsed in a cloud of dust.

It is not yet clear what caused the buildings to collapse, officials said.

Authorities in Cologne have evacuated buildings within a 150m radius around the site, including two schools and a retirement home.

German archive building collapses

Continue reading »]]> A tornado damaged homes and businesses and knocked down power lines Tuesday afternoon as severe storms moved through central Oklahoma. No serious injuries were reported.

Six homes were damaged or destroyed near Edmond, a suburb north of Oklahoma City.

“We are trying to dodge our storms and keep responders safe, so it is taking some time to get confirmation of damages,” city spokeswoman Claudia Deakins said.

Schoolchildren were being kept in locked down schools until the storm passed.

Some structural damage was also reported in northwest Oklahoma City.

One wall of a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant collapsed and windows were blown out, but no injuries were reported, Fire Chief Brian Stanaland said. Signs were stripped and cars were damaged in the parking lot.

A large section of roof was blown off one apartment building and part of a wall was blown off another. Cars were shifted by the wind and smashed into each other. Power lines and debris littered an intersection in northwest Oklahoma City, and motorists were told to stay in their cars until crews could clear the power lines.

Oklahoma Gas and Electric spokesman Brian Alford said about 14,000 customers lost power.

Lara O’Leary, a spokeswoman for Emergency Management Services Authority, said three minor injuries were reported.

“We’re very hopeful residents were in their safe spots when this moved through,” she said.

The National Weather Service confirmed one tornado touched down 3 miles west-southwest of Edmond, about 3 p.m. The same tornado may have caused the damage in northwest Oklahoma City, but the weather service had no immediate confirmation
Storms damage homes, down power lines in Oklahoma

Continue reading »]]> MADRID: At least 10 people, including four children, were killed as high winds struck Spain and France on Saturday, tearing roofs from buildings, blowing down trees and power lines and whipping up huge waves.

The Spanish authorities said the four children were killed and several others injured near Barcelona on Saturday when the roof of a sports center collapsed in high winds. A spokeswoman for the Catalan government said the children had been sheltering from the wind in the sports hall in Sant Boi de Llobregat, just south of Barcelona, when the roof and some of the walls collapsed.

Jaume Bosch, mayor of Sant Boi, said the children were 9 to 12 years old, according to the Web site of La Vanguardia, a Barcelona-based newspaper. The spokeswoman, who spoke on condition of anonymity under government rules, said seven other children and two adults were injured, one of them seriously. Emergency services had pulled everyone free of the rubble of the building by midafternoon, she said.

Photographs of the collapsed building on the Web site of La Vanguardia showed a large, corrugated iron roof caved in over a pile of concrete rubble. Witnesses said about 30 children had been preparing to play baseball and decided to take shelter inside the building.

José Antonio Godina, a parent of one of the children in the sports center who was quoted by the Web site of El Mundo newspaper, said the scene was “horrific.”

“We heard a very loud noise and we thought it was a tree falling on a roof,” he said. “But when we got there, the roof of the building had literally flown off and the walls had collapsed on them.”

The newspaper did not say whether Godina’s child was among the injured.

In northern Spain and southern France, the gales, which reached 160 kilometers an hour, or 100 miles an hour, cut power supplies and closed airports and roads.

The authorities on both sides of the border called on people to stay indoors and stay clear of beaches and harbors as eight-meter waves pounded the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts.

The local authorities in the Landes region of France said one person was killed and one seriously injured when a tree fell on a car, according to Reuters. In Spain, the police said three other people had been killed in Catalonia, one by a falling wall and two by falling trees. Two men, including one police officer, were killed in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia, the police said.

In France, the national power grid manager, Électricité Réseau Distribution France, said nearly 1.2 million homes were cut off. Fecsa, the electricity grid manager in Catalonia, said tens of thousands of people in the northeastern region of four million inhabitants were without power.

The French agriculture minister, Michel Barnier, said the storm was “the worst since 1999,” when a huge storm killed 88 people in France and left nearly four million people without electricity, according to Reuters. He said France would call on the European Union to help finance reconstruction efforts once the extent of the damage becomes clear.

The French interior minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, said she had ordered that 700 extra security forces be sent to the region to help with rescue efforts and that extra equipment also be sent to help clear roads and electric lines.

High winds kill 10 in Spain and France – International Herald Tribune