Earth ChangesS


Radar

10 Aftershocks Followed 4.0 Earthquake in Orange County, Officials Say


Los Angeles Times
Thu, 14 Jun 2012 03:07 UTC
Image
California - The 4.0-magnitute earthquake that rumbled beneath Orange County on Wednesday night resulted in about 10 aftershocks, the most recent occurring Thursday morning, officials said.

The latest temblor, which was too small to feel, happened about 7:30 a.m., about 11 hours after the 4.0-magnitude quake hit, said Bob Dollar, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Most of the aftershocks occurred within about an hour of the 4.0 quake, the largest being two 2.4-magnitude temblors that were about two miles north and north-northwest of Yorba Linda.

The first quake was felt over a wide area of Los Angeles and Orange counties, Dollar said, with more than 8,000 people reporting to the USGS's "Did you feel it?" page.
Read More...
Radar

Magnitude 5.5 Earthquake Shakes Southeastern Turkey, Some Minor Damage, Injuries Reported


The Washington Post
Wed, 13 Jun 2012 00:00 UTC

Ankara, Turkey - A moderate earthquake shook southeastern Turkey on Thursday, damaging a mosque's minarets and injuring a handful of people who jumped off buildings in panic, authorities said.

The Kandilli Observatory seismology center said a magnitude 5.5 quake struck at a depth of 5.4 kilometers (3.3 miles) on Thursday morning at 8:52 p.m. ( 0552GMT)

The epicenter of the quake was in the village of Pinaronu in Sirnak province, close to the borders of Syria and Iraq.
Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Torrential Rains Pound Taiwan Leaving Six Dead and Thousands Homeless


BBC News
Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:01 UTC
Image
At least six people have been killed after flooding hit Taiwan.

Torrential rain brought floods to counties in numerous parts of the country, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes.

Taiwan's Central Emergency Operation Centre said more than 7,000 people were moved, with the help of the military, according to Reuters news agency.

The flooding caused landslides, as well as power cuts and water shortages to tens of thousands of homes.

The emergency centre said flooding had caused power cuts to more than 87,000 homes and water shortages to 12,000.

While it was reported that six people had died, a further two were said to be missing.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Quakes Along Section of San Andreas More Frequent Than Thought

Becky Oskin
OurAmazingPlanet
Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:36 UTC
Fault Lines
© Modified from Fumal (2012), courtesy of USGS and California Geological SurveyPhoto-mosaic of the northwest wall of a trench across the San Andreas Fault in Mill Canyon near Watsonville, Calif. The photo shows contacts between layers of sediment (white lines) and fault traces (red lines). The dominant, dark gray colored feature is a very large fissure that formed as a result of faulting during an earthquake, most likely in 1838.
Contorted layers of clay and gravel show a segment of the San Andreas Fault that devastated San Francisco with a huge earthquake in 1906 may be more hazardous than previously thought.

The San Andreas Fault divides California for more than 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) from Cape Mendocino to the Salton Sea. The fault marks the boundary between two plates of the Earth's crust: the Pacific Plate on the west side of the fault is sliding slowly northwest past the North American plate on the east.

Geologists Thomas Fumal and Timothy Dawson dug trenches across the San Andreas Fault in the Santa Cruz Mountains, about 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Watsonville and discovered traces of four large past earthquakes. Broken sediment revealed quakes occur more often than prior estimates, and two historic earthquakes reached further south than found before.
Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Baseball-sized hail hits Dallas, Texas area

txcine
YouTube
Wed, 13 Jun 2012 17:07 UTC
Read More...
Cloud Lightning

A 'once in 50 years' storm: More flood misery as UK set to be hit by 70mph winds and month's worth of rain in next 24 hours


Mirror News
Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:16 UTC
Image
© NASAStorm brewing: Terra satellite took this stunning image of the 70pmh Atlantic storm
Britain is braced for yet more flood misery as a "once in 50 years" storm is set to hit the UK tomorrow.

Flood warnings have been issued in parts of England and Wales with a month's worth of rain and winds of up to 70mph expected in the next 24 hours.

After a dry period of respite for many parts of Britain yesterday, the wet weather is set to return this evening and get worse going into tomorrow as a slow-moving area of low pressure brings thundery showers and strong winds.

The Met Office has issued a new warning of wet and windy weather with periods of persistent heavy rain for parts of Wales and south-western England from late today until Saturday.

The Weather Channel also predicted up to 110mm of rain in 48 hours, with a 50 per cent chance of a once-in-50 years 80mm downpour in just 12 hours.

Forecaster Leon Brown reportedly said: "There's a 50 per cent possibility of extreme downpours seeing over 80mm of rain in 12 hours in south and east Wales, which is a once-in-50 years event.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Massive landslide closes highway in Costa Rica


InsideCostaRica.com
Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:48 UTC
Ruta 32, the route that connects San José with Guapiles and Limón, is once again closed due to a landslide occurring at kilometre 30 in the area of the Zurquí, some 10 km east of the tunnel. The road is expected to remain closed for most of the day today Thursday, as work crews clean up the debris strewn across the road.
Image
© Unknown
The Consejo Nacional de Vialidad (CONAVI) says it is in the process of removing some 6.400 cubic metres of mud and other materials that coves some 8 metres (25 feet) of roadway.
Read More...
Nuke

Fukushima Daiichi: From Nuclear Power Plant to Nuclear Weapon #1

Anthony Hall
Veteran's Today
Wed, 13 Jun 2012 22:59 UTC
"Our world is faced with a crisis that has never before been envisaged in its whole existence... The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe."

Albert Einstein, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May, 1946
fukushima graphic
© n/a
Albert Einstein's Warning and the Ominous Fate of Fukushima Daiichi

As the bad news gradually spreads that the debacle at Fukushima nuclear power plant #1 is becoming more perilous rather than less so, the words of Albert Einstein come to mind. Recall that the legendary physicist, Einstein, helped to set in motion the Manhattan Project whose personnel designed and built the first atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In his letter to US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1939 Einstein warned that if the United States did not enter and win the race to harness the destructive potential of atomic weaponry, Germany would almost certainly do so.

The Manhattan Project became a primary prototype for the Research and Development - R and D - partnerships linking the US government and for-profit corporations in what a Dwight D. Eisenhower would later describe as "the military-industrial complex." Einstein himself did not directly participate in this huge initiative aimed at defeating the Axis powers linking Japan with Germany and Italy. One of the twentieth century's most iconographic thinkers watched from the sidelines as other physicists and technologists applied many of Einstein's theories to the building of atomic weaponry.

After Japan lay in ruins, not only from the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but also from the massive carpet bombing of Tokyo and several other urban centers, Einstein went public with his fears and anxieties. In famous passages that have been subject to various translations and paraphrasing Einstein observed, "Our world is faced with a crisis that has never before been envisaged in its whole existence... The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe."
Read More...
Radar

71 confirmed dead in yet another Afghanistan earthquake


ZeeNews.com
Thu, 14 Jun 2012 05:49 UTC
Image
A total of 71 people including women and children were killed in the earthquake that hit Burka town in northern Afghanistan on Monday, said Burka district police chief Habib Rahman on Wednesday, citing the latest counting.

"Our counting indicates that 71 people with majority of them women and children have lost their lives in the devastating earthquake that jolted Burka district on Monday," he told newsmen.

Rescue operations have been going on to search the bodies trapped under debris, he added.

A quake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale shocked several parts of Afghanistan including Kabul and Burka in northern Baghlan province, 160 km north of the capital, on Monday morning.

According to locals, the male members of the affected families in Burka were out on their farmland at the time of the quake and that is why the casualties are mostly women and children.

The earthquake triggered landslides in mountainous Burka district, destroying 25 houses in a village.

Since Burka is a far-flanged area with poor communication facilities, authorities could not report the casualties in time. Meanwhile, some locals believe the casualties may go higher.
Read More...
Snowman

Mount Washington covered in snow for record third June in a row


Canada.com
Wed, 13 Jun 2012 05:44 UTC
Image
From the Mount Washington Observatory website, a photo of the crew building a June snowman on Monday.
For an unbelievable third year in a row, Mount Washington will operate on Father's Day weekend for skiing and boarding. The resort will spin the Whiskey Jack Chairlift from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on June 16-17.

"We recently completed another stellar snow season up here so the writing was on the wall back in April-we were contemplating another summer snow session," explains resort spokesperson Brent Curtain.

To make some turns on the summer corn snow, tickets will cost $25 per person and rental skis and boards will be an additional $25. If you pre-purchase your tickets and rentals online at mountwashington.ca you get an additional 10 per cent discount.

The mountain is confirming that Linton's Loop will be open top to bottom that weekend but will determine if more runs can open closer to June 16. "We want to see what the weather brings over the next week before we commit to the number of runs we can open," adds Curtain.
Read More...