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Vehicles washed away by tsunami are left in Ofunato, Iwate, northern Japan in Saturday, March 12, 2011 after Japan’s biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday.

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Ships drifted by tsunami sit on the land near a port in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, Saturday morning, March 12, 2011 after Japan’s biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday.

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The 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami was an 8.8 to 9.1-M_W megathrust earthquake that created tsunami waves of up to 10 meters (33 ft). It was measured at 7 on the Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale in the northern Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The earthquake focus was reported to be 130 kilometres off the Oshika Peninsula, the east coast of Tōhoku on 11 March 2011, at 05:46 UTC (14:46 local time) at a depth of 24.4 kilometers (15.2 mi).

News reports by Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) indicate that nearly 580 people have died and more than 1400 are missing in six different prefectures.

Estimates of magnitude range from 8.8 to 9.1 M_W making it the largest earthquake to hit Japan and one of the five largest earthquakes in the world since modern record-keeping began.

Other Information

• Date : 14:46:23, 11 March 2011 (UTC+9) (2011-03-11T14:46:23UTC+9)
• Magnitude : 8.8–9.1 M_W
• Depth : 24.4 km (15.2 mi)
• Epicenter location : 38°19′19″N 142°22′08″E / 38.322°N 142.369°E / 38.322; 142.369Coordinates
• Type ” Megathrust earthquake
• Countries or regions affected : Japan (primary), Multiple nations (tsunami)
• Total damage : Flooding and reports of major damage
• Tsunami : Yes
• Landslides : Yes
• Aftershocks : At least 150 (22 above 6.0 M_W)
• Casualties (preliminary) : nearly 580 dead, more than 1400 missing (March 11, 2011 )

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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

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Continue reading »]]> A natural disaster is the effect of a natural hazard (e.g. flood, tornado, hurricane, volcanic eruption, earthquake, or landslide) that affects the environment, and leads to financial, environmental and/or human losses. The resulting loss depends on the capacity of the population to support or resist the disaster, and their resilience. This understanding is concentrated in the formulation: “disasters occur when hazards meet vulnerability.” A natural hazard will hence never result in a natural disaster in areas without vulnerability, e.g. strong earthquakes in uninhabited areas. The term natural has consequently been disputed because the events simply are not hazards or disasters without human involvement.

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

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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

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

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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 »]]> PORT MORESEBY – Three bodies have been recovered and 16 people are missing, feared dead, after a massive landslide wiped out a remote Papua New Guinea village.

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