Earth Changes

Storm spawns snow, tornado in Northern California

The Monterey County Herald
Sat, 19 Mar 2011 01:31 UTC

A powerful winter storm raked Northern California on Friday, unleashing a small tornado that tore the roof off a business and bringing heavy snow to the Sierra Nevada that was blamed for a fatal chain-reaction crash on Interstate 80.

The afternoon crash in the mountains 70 miles east of Sacramento involved at least six big rigs and 15 vehicles, California Highway Patrol Sgt. Curtis Fouyer said.

A man who appeared to be in his 60s was found dead, but Fouyer did not know if he was in one of the vehicles crushed by a big rig. Other motorists called police to report they were trapped but uninjured.

"They're still pulling things apart to figure out what's where and get the cars moved," Fouyer said three hours after the crash near Yuba Gap, a popular weekend sledding destination.

Small quake hits Southern Finland

Sott.net
Sat, 19 Mar 2011 14:03 UTC

Finland's Institute of Seismology at the University of Helsinki confirmed that a 2.6 magnitude quake had struck the area. Institute Director Pekka Heikkinen said that quakes of tremors of this magnitude are unusual in southern Finland. He noted they only usually occur a few times annually. Around 30 small earth tremors in Finland are usually detected in northern parts of the country.

California, US: Landslide Forces Evacuation of Ranch

Scott Weber
NBC Los Angeles
Sat, 19 Mar 2011 12:05 UTC

A landslide near the small town of Somis in Ventura County forced the evacuation of a residence and several horses.

According to the Ventura County Star, a piece of land about 200 yards long and 100 yards deep moved downhill about 100 feet on a ranch located in the 7600 block of Bradley Road. A residence and 63 horses were being moved.

The landslide started around 6:30 a.m. A local property manager reported seeing trees falling and sliding on a hillside and contacted the Fire Department.

The cause of the landslide was not immediately known. A local geologist was called to investigate, the Star reported.

No injuries were reported.

2010 Extreme Weather: Deadliest Year In A Generation

Seth Borenstein and Julie Reed Bell
The Huffington Post
Sun, 19 Dec 2010 00:56 UTC

This was the year the Earth struck back.

Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 - the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.

"It just seemed like it was back-to-back and it came in waves," said Craig Fugate, who heads the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. It handled a record number of disasters in 2010.

"The term '100-year event' really lost its meaning this year."

And we have ourselves to blame most of the time, scientists and disaster experts say.

Comment: Interesting how the blame is assigned to those who are struggling daily with the effects of psychopathy at the top (including scientific establishment), and with the influence of those who are in fact responsible for the negligence, mediocrity, political manipulations and lies so prevalent in our nowadays society.

Even though many catastrophes have the ring of random chance, the hand of man made this a particularly deadly, costly, extreme and weird year for everything from wild weather to earthquakes.

Poor construction and development practices conspire to make earthquakes more deadly than they need be. More people live in poverty in vulnerable buildings in crowded cities. That means that when the ground shakes, the river breaches, or the tropical cyclone hits, more people die.

US: Onslaught of Wild Texas Hogs 'Can Do More Damage Than a Bulldozer'

New York Magazine
Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:17 UTC

Texas is being taken over by feral hogs, which run in packs, can weigh up to 375 pounds, and sometimes have tusks. "I think people expect this to be a rural problem," Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples told the AP. Not so! They're in the Dallas suburbs. Out in the country they were shredding cornfields, trampling fruit trees, and devouring the occasional calf (!), but in the city they are uprooting lawns and overturning playground equipment. They're always out there. In the darkness. Waiting. "If you do wake up at night," says Sharie La Vail, whose yard was hit by the hogs, "you look out the window, because you just don't know. I think they outnumber us."

Texas has about 2 million hogs in state, and they cause some $400 million in damage each year. They can break through barbed-wire fences, and they breed so quickly that officials have been stumped about how to stop them from spreading into cities. There was a pig birth-control pill, which failed, and now the Fish and Wildlife Service might let hunters shoot the hogs from helicopters. (Palin family vacay!)

Part Of Costa Rica Disappears Following Japan Earthquake

Inside Costa Rica
Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:08 UTC

One of Costa Rica's most important tourist attractions in the the Zona Sur (Southern Zone), the Tómbolo de Punta Uvita, has disappeared following last Friday's 9 magnitude earthquake.

Experts of the Obvservatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico de Costa Rica (OVSICORI) - Costa Rica's volcanology and seismic institute - believe that the tsunami caused by the earthquake increased tides and possibly a drop in the sea floor.

The Tómbolo or the "cola de ballena" (whale's tail), is a stretch of sandy beach located in the Parque Marino Ballena in Punta Uvita that visitors, during low tide, of the area can walk from the mainland out to sea almost one kilometre.

However, since Friday morning residents of the area and confirmed by experts, the level of water covers most of the Tómbolo even at low time and the only way to reach the tail is by swimming out to it.

6.5 Quake Strikes Sea Floor NW of Vanuatu

DAVID FICKLING And JAMES GLYNN
The Wall Street Journal
Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:57 UTC

Sydney - A magnitude 6.5 earthquake has struck the sea floor northwest of the Vanuatu capital of Port Vila, according to a notice from the U.S. Geological Survey, adding to jitters over tremors in the region following the quake that has devastated parts of Japan.

The notice said the earthquake, at 1:48 p.m. local time, had an epicenter 35 kilometers down, with coordinates 17.5 degrees south and 167.6 degrees east. The location is 77 kilometers northwest of Port Vila, close enough to pose some threat of a tsunami, the USGS said.

"No destructive widespread tsunami threat exists based on historical earthquake and tsunami data. However, earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within 100km of the earthquake epicenter," the USGS said in a statement.

Four quakes measuring 5 points occur east of Honshu

Itar-Tass
Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:43 UTC

Vladivostok, March 17 (Itar-Tass) - There were four earthquakes with magnitudes 5.0 and above at the eastern coast of the Japanese island of Honshu on Thursday morning. The earth shocks' focuses were at depths from 20 to 39 kilometres, said the US Geological Survey.

Japan: Tohoku Earthquake Shaking Intensity

Earth Observatory, NASA
Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:06 UTC

© Earth Observatory, NASA
NASA Earth Observatory Image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using data from the USGS Earthquakes Hazard Program and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Geographic Information Science and Technology.

On March 11, 2011, the largest earthquake in Japan's modern history struck off the northeast coast, about 130 kilometers (81 miles) east of the mainland region of Tohoku. Initially categorized as magnitude 8.9, the quake was later revised upward to magnitude 9.0 by the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The event shook buildings and damaged infrastructure hundreds of kilometers away. Closer to the main shock, coastal regions were devastated by the quake and the resulting tsunami.

This map shows the ground motion and shaking intensity from the earthquake at dozens of locations across Japan. Each circle represents an estimate of shaking as recorded by the USGS, in conjunction with regional seismic networks. Shades of pale yellow represent the lowest intensity and deep red represents high intensity. The ground shaking data is overlaid on a map of population density provided by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

A shaking intensity of VI is considered "strong" and can produce "light damage," while a IX on the scale is described as "violent" and likely to produce "heavy damage." The pattern of shaking appears to run parallel to the offshore subduction trench, with the intensity decreasing more from east to west, as opposed to north and south. Ground motion also seems to be more intense in coastal and riverine areas, where settlements are built on softer sediments and less bedrock.

US: Landslide Shuts Famed Californian Highway 1 as Big Chunk Falls Into The Sea

The Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 18 Mar 2011 20:51 UTC

It is the most scenic highway in America, but a big chunk of California's Highway 1 has fallen into the sea after a landslide.

Stunned drivers watched as a forty-foot section tumbled into the Pacific below after several days of rain.

The landslide, at 5pm on Wednesday, happened 12 miles from Carmel. A two-mile stretch is now closed for repairs which are expected to take several days.