Earth ChangesS


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Small quake rattles northern Thailand

An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.5 on the Richter scale struck northern Thailand, but there were no reports of casualties or damage.

The quake hit the northern province of Chiang Rai, along the border of Myanmar and Laos, 790 kilometers (483 miles) north of Bangkok, the department said Saturday.

The epicenter was located 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Chiang Rai, but the department did not have a figure for its depth.

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Earthquake jolts southeastern Bangladesh

An earthquake measuring 4.1 on the Richter scale jolted Bangladesh's southeastern port city Chittagong and its adjoining area early Sunday.

The quake occurred at 1:03 a.m. (19:03 GMT) and the distance of the epicenter of the quake was 191 km from Chittagong Seismic Observatory.

The magnitude of the earthquake was 4.1 on the Richter scale and it lasted for 21 seconds.

The intensity was light, said a Met Office bulletin.

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Another quake rattles remote Russia island

MOSCOW -- An earthquake measured at 6.3 on the Richter Scale rolled through the remote Kuril Range in far eastern Russia Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The powerful quake caused no major problems despite being classified as a "strong" event by international seismologists.

The U.S. Geological Survey fixed the epicenter at about 270 miles east northeast of the Kuril Islands, nearly in the same spot as an earthquake registering 5.2 that occurred on Friday.

Russia's Itar-Tass news service said that the Kurils have been shaking on a regular basis in recent weeks with a 6.9 earthquake recorded on Oct. 1.

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Hawaii quake shuts down power, shakes up tourists

When the strongest earthquake to hit Hawaii in 20 years jolted people awake Sunday morning, causing untold damage to roads and buildings, it turned a paradise dream vacation for many into a nightmare.

In Waikiki, worried visitors began lining up to buy food, water and other supplies.

The quake - estimated to be between magnitude 6.5 and 6.6 - hit at 12:07 p.m. St. Louis time, 10 miles north-northwest of Kailua Kona, a town on the west coast of Hawaii Island, also known as the Big Island, said Don Blakeman, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center.

It sent rocks tumbling onto highways, crashed the ceiling of a hospital and caused untold damage to buildings and bridges. Aftershocks - one as strong as magnitude 5.8 - continued all day. Hotels reported some minor injuries, but Gov. Linda Lingle said there were no fatalities.

Officials said there was no danger of a tsunami.

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World slips further into the 'eco-red'

WE ARE consuming the Earth's resources faster than they can be replenished, at least according to US think tank Global Footprint Network. It declared 9 October "overshoot day" - the point in each year when our ecological allowance for that year is spent.

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The undersea quake-zone tunnel builders

Sitting at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, the ancient city of Istanbul has seen thousands of years of trade, battles and invasions. Now it is the scene of one of the most audacious engineering projects in the world.

The Marmaray Rail Tube Tunnel, due to open in 2010, will not only be the deepest underwater tunnel ever constructed. It willalso pass within 16 kilometres of one of the most active geological faults in the world. A major earthquake is not only expected, but imminent. No wonder the Turkish government is calling it the project of the century.

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Cooling oceans buck global trend

THE upper layers of Earth's oceans have cooled significantly over the past two years, even though the planet as a whole is warming up. While this may just be part of the natural variation of oceans, climatologists are still confounded by the massive, unaccountable loss of heat.

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Cosmic rays before seven, clouds by eleven

For about a decade now, cosmic rays have been thought to affect the formation of clouds, but no one had come up with any evidence for an exact mechanism. Now, a Danish experiment has shown that subatomic debris created when these high-energy particles collide with the atmosphere could be behind some of our cloud cover.

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Hawaii governor declares statewide emergency after 6.6 Quake

HONOLULU, Hawaii -- Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle issued a disaster declaration for the entire state about four hours after a strong earthquake rumbled throughout its Big Island at 7:07 a.m. (1:07 p.m. ET) Sunday.

The quake knocked out power at many homes across the island chain and caused at least one landslide on a major roadway on the island of Hawaii, known as the Big Island, according to Hawaii's KITV. Officials said a state of emergency had been declared on the Big Island.

Authorities told KITV they have not received news of any fatalities from the strong quake, which was measured by the National Earthquake Information Center as 6.6 in magnitude.

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New TB Strain Frets S Africa

South Africa has invited experts of the World health Organization (WHO) to brainstorm on a virulent strain of tuberculosis that has claimed 70 lives, local media inform Friday.

Such encounter, scheduled Tuesday and Wednesday on Johannesburg, aims at finding a formula to fight multi-drug resistant (MDR) and the extremely-drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis.