The 2010 Pakistan floods began in July 2010 after record heavy monsoon rains. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan was worst affected. At least 1,600 people were killed, thousands were rendered homeless, and more than fourteen million people were affected. Estimates from rescue-service-officials suggest the death-toll may reach 3,000 victims. According to a recent estimate of United Nations, the number of people suffering from these massive floods in Pakistan exceeds 13.8 million, which is more than the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Overview

The floods were caused by monsoon rains, which were forecast to continue into early August and were described as the worst in this area in the last 80 years. The Pakistan Meteorological Department said that 300 mm (12 inches) of rain fell over a 36-hour period and more was expected. So far as many as 500,000 or more people have been displaced from their homes. Manuel Bessler, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, stated that 36 districts were involved, and 550,000 people were affected, although later reports increased the number to as high as a million affected. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial information-minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said “the infrastructure of this province was already destroyed by terrorism. Whatever was left was finished off by these floods.” He also called the floods “the worst calamity in our history.” Four million Pakistanis were left with food-shortages.

Officials have warned that the death-toll could rise as many towns and villages are not accessible and communications have been disrupted. In some areas, the water-level was 5.5 m (18 ft) high and residents were seen on roof-tops waiting for aid to arrive. At least 45 bridges and 3,700 houses were swept away in the floods. The Karakoram Highway, which connects Pakistan with China, was closed after a bridge was destroyed. The ongoing devastating floods in Pakistan will have a severe impact on an already vulnerable population, says the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). In addition to all the other damage they have caused, floodwaters have destroyed much of the healthcare-infrastructure in the worst-affected areas, leaving inhabitants especially vulnerable to water-borne disease.

In early August, the heaviest flooding moved southward along the Indus River from severely-affected northern regions toward western Punjab, where at least 1,400,000 acres (570,000 ha) of cropland was destroyed, and the southern province of Sindh. In Sindh, the Indus River burst its banks near Sukkur on August 8, submerging the village of Mor Khan Jatoi.

Other Information

• Duration: 27 July 2010—
• Damages: 15 Billion USD (Approx.)
• Fatalities: 1,600+
• Areas affected: Pakistan, India

Rank	Event	Location	Date
1.	1931 China floods	China	July, November, 1931
2.	1887 Yellow River flood	China	September, October, 1887
3.	1556 Shaanxi earthquake	Shaanxi Province, China	January 23, 1556
4.	1970 Bhola cyclone	East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)	November 13, 1970
5.	1839 India Cyclone	India	November 25, 1839
6.	526 Antioch earthquake	Antioch, Turkey	05 May 526
7.	1976 Tangshan earthquake	Tangshan, Hebei, China	July 28, 1976
8.	1920 Haiyuan earthquake	Haiyuan, Ningxia-Gansu, China	December 16, 1920
9.	2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami	Sumatra, Indonesia	December 26, 2004
10.	2010 Haiti earthquake	Port-au-Prince, Haiti	January 12, 2010

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

News

• 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

Links

• Wikipedia

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.

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

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

Villagers had to walk three hours to alert authorities in Morobe Province, on PNG’s northwest coast, after days of continual heavy rains caused the landslide early on Monday.

Authorities and local media reported on Wednesday at least five Firangka village houses were wiped out in the Sialum District when the face of an overlooking mountain slid for more than 500m, carving up 200m at its widest.

PNG’s National newspaper reported a village headcount showed 19 people, including women and children, were missing.

“It came so suddenly there was nothing we could do,” said villager Bobby Toby, a retired teacher.

“There were no warning signs, no earthquakes, it just happened,” he said.

Deputy Provincial administrator Patilias Gamato and other local officials visited the remote site by helicopter on Tuesday.

Gamato said PNG’s National Disaster and Emergency Office would see relief supplies reach the area by Thursday.

“Morobe province has a record of disasters that occur during the wet period and everyone, especially remote areas, should be cautious,” he said.

The bodies of a woman and two men were recovered on Monday, while villagers remain optimistic survivors will be found.

Australian relief and aid services based in PNG’s capital Port Moresby are gathering information and assessing the situation.

The village is located in the Zongefifi area about 90km northeast of Lae, PNG’s second largest city, and sits on the fringes of the rugged Sarawaget Range.

16 missing after PNG landslide

A tremor of 5.6 magnitude spread more panic yesterday evening in L’Aquila, a city once home to about 70,000 people, where the impact was felt the strongest. At least one person was reported killed as a result of the shock. Monday’s earthquake was between 5.8 to 6.3 magnitude.

All day, aftershocks hampered the rescue effort as relatives of the missing waited for news of their loved ones.

At one point rescuers looking for more bodies in a collapsed student dormitory in L’Aquila had to run from the rubble as one of the bigger aftershocks hit shortly before midday.

Ollie Hodge, 29, a rugby player from Bristol, who signed up to play for L’Aquila last year, told of his horror as he woke up in the middle of the earthquake, which also killed a teammate.

“Myself and a few of the boys from the club went out to the hospital to help. We were carrying beds down the stairs and carrying people out. You just do what you can in a situation like that. It still hasn’t sunk in yet. The scenes in the centre of town were unreal — it’s like a war zone down there. Absolutely horrendous.”

By yesterday afternoon rescue workers had all but given up hope of pulling any more survivors from the wreckage, and the men in hard hats and harnesses were looking for corpses rather than miracles.

The quake had ripped the student dormitory in two, leaving an ugly crevasse of twisted metal and crumpled air vents. In the afternoon four people were finally located but tearful emergency workers declined to say whether they were alive or dead.

In some areas of the city, rescuers were digging by hand to find any survivors. Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, said that the efforts would continue for two more days “until it is certain that there is no one else alive”.

Tent camps provided by civil protection volunteers housed some of the 17,000 left homeless by the quake, but many spent the night in the chill mountain air without blankets.

David de Angeli stood outside one of the tents, cradling a bandaged hand. He described how he had escaped from his house as the wreckage rained down, scooping up a neighbour’s ten-year-old daughter and fleeing into the street. “I still haven’t heard from my son or my grandson,” he said, bursting into tears and walking away.

Aerial footage showed the scale of the destruction in this city of Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque and Renaissance architectural treasures. Roofs were missing from modern buildings, old churches had fallen and the walls and other parts of medieval buildings had tumbled to the ground. Officials said that 10,000 to 15,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed.

Earthquake experts and the Italian media praised the rescue effort and said that the Government had responded well to the catastrophe. But, they said, the real disaster was the country’s continuing failure to take measures to limit earthquake damage and prevent deaths.

“This time the State was there for us,” said La Stampa. It added: “It is unpleasant to reflect on a catastrophe when there are still people to pull out of the rubble, but we have to do so if we are to avoid yet more pain and rage. It is not earthquakes which kill, but badly constructed buildings.”

Franco Barberi, a geologist, said in a television broadcast from a camp for evacuees at L’Aquila that “an earthquake like this in California would not have provoked a single death”.

Scale of the disaster

• 228 confirmed dead
• 17 bodies still unidentified
• 15 missing
• 50,000 estimated homeless
• 13,000 estimated number of buildings damaged or destroyed

Italian earthquake: deathtoll reaches 228 as aftershock slows rescue

A powerful earthquake in mountainous central Italy knocked down whole blocks of buildings early Monday as residents slept, killing more than 150 people in the country’s deadliest quake in nearly three decades. Tens of thousands were homeless and 1,500 were injured.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi, speaking by telephone with one of the TV networks of his media empire, said more than 150 people were dead and more than 1,500 people injured in the quake, which struck near the medieval town of L’Aquila, nestled in the Apennine mountains, before dawn.

The quake felled whole blocks of buildings in L’Aquila and the surrounding area early Monday as residents slept.

Ambulances screamed through L’Aquila as firefighters with dogs and a crane worked feverishly to reach people trapped in fallen buildings, including a university dormitory where a half dozen students were believed still inside.

As midnight approached, rescuers pulled a scared-looking dog with a bleeding paw out of the dormitory rubble. Relatives and friends of the missing stood wrapped in blankets or huddled under umbrellas in the rain as rescuers pulled out pieces of what seemed like an armoire, a smashed chair, photographs, wallets and diaries but none of the young people for whom they were searching.

The relatives, sobbing or grim-faced, refused to talk to reporters.

But elsewhere in L’Aquila, firefighters reported pulling a 21-year-old woman and a 22-year-man, both of them Italian, from what was an apartment building where many students rented flats. The building’s five stories had pancaked into one slab or concrete.

Outside the half-collapsed building, part of the University of L’Aquila, tearful young people huddled together, some in their slippers, after being roused from sleep by the quake. Dozens managed to escape as the dorm walls fell around them but hours after the quake, a body of a male student was pulled from the rubble.

“We managed to come down with other students but we had to sneak through a hole in the stairs as the whole floor came down,” said student Luigi Alfonsi, 22. “I was in bed — it was like it would never end as I heard pieces of the building collapse around me.”

“There was water gushing out of broken water pipes, and the corridor which led to the stairs was partially blocked when a piece of the wall came down,” Alfonsi, his eyes filling with tears and his hands trembling, told The Associated Press.

Some 10,000 to 15,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed, officials said. L’Aquila Mayor Massimo Cialente said about 100,000 people were homeless. It was not clear if the mayor’s estimate included surrounding towns.

The quake also took a severe toll on the city’s prized architectural heritage. L’Aquila was built as a mountain stronghold during the Middle Ages and has many Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance buildings.

Damage to monuments was reported as far away as Rome, where cracks appeared at the thermal baths built in the 3rd century by the emperor Caracalla, Culture Ministry official Giuseppe Proietti said. The damage was not serious, and other Roman monuments suffered no consequences, he said.

Parts of many of the ancient churches and castles in and around L’Aquila have collapsed. Centuries-old churches in many isolated villages in the area are believed partly collapsed, and damage to ancient monuments has been reported as far as Rome.

L’Aquila, capital of the Abruzzo region, was near the epicenter about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of Rome. It is a quake-prone region that has had at least nine smaller jolts since the beginning of April. The quake struck at 3:32 a.m. The U.S. Geological Survey said the big quake was magnitude 6.3, but Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics put it at 5.8. More than a dozen aftershocks followed.

Italy’s national police chief Antonio Manganelli said several people had been arrested for looting. He said those picked up were “caught while they were stealing from abandoned houses. It’s sad.”

The quake hit 26 towns and cities around L’Aquila, which lies in a valley surrounded by the Apennine mountains. Castelnuovo, a hamlet of about 300 people 15 miles (25 kilometers) southeast of L’Aquila, appeared hard hit, and five people were confirmed dead there. Another small town, Onno, was almost leveled.

“A few houses have remained standing, but just a few,” Stefania Pezzopane, provincial president of L’Aquila, told Corriere della Sera. Rescue workers in Onna, a different small town, with a population of about 250, said the town was virtually deserted as survivors sought shelter elsewhere.

The four-star, 133-room Hotel Duca degli Abruzzi in L’Aquila’s historic center was heavily damaged but still standing and it was not known if there were any casualties, said Ornella De Luca of the national civil protection agency in Rome. “The information is very fragmentary,” she said.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi declared a state of emergency, freeing up federal funds to deal with the disaster, and canceled a visit to Russia so he could deal with the crisis.

Condolences poured in from around the world, including from President Barack Obama, Pope Benedict XVI and Abdullah Gul, president of quake-prone Turkey.

Slabs of walls, twisted steel supports, furniture and wire fences were strewn about the streets of L’Aquila, and gray dust carpeted sidewalks, cars and residents.

Residents and rescue workers hauled away debris from collapsed buildings by hand or in an assembly lines, passing buckets. Firefighters pulled a woman covered in dust from the debris of her four-story home. Rescue crews demanded quiet as they listened for signs of life from other people believed still trapped inside.

Elsewhere, a man dressed only in his underwear wept as he was pulled from the debris and embraced.

A body lay on the sidewalk, covered by a white sheet.

Parts of L’Aquila’s main hospital were evacuated because they were at risk of collapse, and only two operating rooms were in use. Bloodied victims waited in hospital hallways or in the courtyard and many were being treated in the open. A field hospital was being set up.

In the dusty streets, as aftershocks rumbled through, residents hugged one another, prayed quietly or frantically tried to call relatives. Residents covered in dust pushed carts full of clothes and blankets that they had thrown together before fleeing their homes.

“We left as soon as we felt the first tremors,” said Antonio D’Ostilio, 22, as he stood on a street in L’Aquila with a huge suitcase piled with clothes. “We woke up all of a sudden and we immediately ran downstairs in our pajamas.”

Evacuees converged on an athletics field on the outskirts of L’Aquila where a makeshift tent camp was being set up. Civil protection officials distributed bread and water to people who lay on the grass next to heaps of their belongings.

“It’s a catastrophe and an immense shock,” said resident Renato Di Stefano, who was moving with his family to the camp as a precaution. “It’s struck in the heart of the city, we will never forget the pain.”

The Culture Ministry said a wall of the 13th century Santa Maria di Collemaggio church collapsed and the bell tower of the Renaissance San Bernadino church also fell. The 16th century castle housing the Abruzzo National Museum was damaged.

This was Italy’s deadliest quake since Nov. 23, 1980, when one measuring 6.9-magnitude hit southern regions, leveling villages and causing some 3,000 deaths.

Many modern structures in Italy over recent decades have failed to hold up to the rigors of quakes along Italy’s mountainous spine, or in coastal cities like Naples. Despite warnings by geologists and architects, some of these buildings have not been retrofitted for seismic safety.

Pezzopane, the provincial president, said residents may have been lulled into complacency because so many smaller quakes had jolted the area, including two or three earlier in the night.

“Considering what happened, a bit more concern, more attention might have saved lives,” she said.

National officials insisted no quake can ever be predicted and that no evacuation could have been ordered on the basis of the recent jolts.

“There is no possibility of making any predictions on earthquakes. This is a fact in the world’s scientific community,” Civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso told reporters.

The last major quake to hit central Italy was a 5.4-magnitude temblor that struck the south-central Molise region on Oct. 31, 2002, killing 28 people, including 27 children who died when their school collapsed.

Over 150 dead, 1,500 injured in Italy quake