Earthquakes
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Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - ESE of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russia

Kamchatskiy Quake_210513
© USGS
Event Time
2013-05-21 01:55:08 UTC
2013-05-21 12:55:08 UTC+11:00 at epicenter

Location

52.505°N 160.470°E depth=33.9km (21.1mi)

Nearby Cities
136km (85mi) ESE of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russia
147km (91mi) ESE of Vilyuchinsk, Russia
159km (99mi) ESE of Yelizovo, Russia
988km (614mi) SE of Magadan, Russia
2483km (1543mi) NE of Tokyo, Japan

Technical Details

Cloud Grey

Huge tornado devastates Oklahoma City suburb, kills 37


At least 37 people -- including seven children at an elementary school -- were killed when a storm with a massive tornado struck an area outside Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon, officials said.

Seven children were killed at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma, a police official said. Emergency personnel were scouring the school's rubble Monday evening, video from CNN affiliate KFOR showed. The footage also showed a number of other leveled buildings.

The tornado was estimated to be at least 2 miles wide at one point as it moved through Moore, in the southern part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, KFOR reported. Video from CNN affiliates showed a funnel cloud stretching from the sky to the ground, kicking up debris.

Cloud Precipitation

Geological upheaval - April 2013


Bizarro Earth

Shallow 6.5 magnitude earthquake strikes off the coast of Aisen, Chile

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The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude-6.5 earthquake has struck off the coast of Chile. The quake was recorded at 5:49 a.m. local time (EDT; 0949 GMT) Monday, at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres, some 600 kilometres from the city of Puerto Quellon. No tsunami warning was issued. Chile's naval seismology office says it was not felt on land. U.S. seismologists originally estimated the magnitude at 6.8. Chile is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake and the tsunami it unleashed in 2010 killed 551 people and destroyed 220,000 homes. It was so strong it changed time, shortening the Earth's day slightly by changing the planet's rotation. The strongest earthquake ever recorded also happened in Chile, a magnitude-9.5 in 1960. - CTV News

USGS Technical data

Bizarro Earth

Tension mounting on Pacific Plate: Kamchatka rocked by scores of earthquakes

A massive earthquake swarm has occurred in the region of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russia. More than 20 earthquakes have struck the region in the last 22 hours- the strongest of which was a 5.9 magnitude earthquake, which rattled the seafloor at a depth of 16.5 km deep. The latest seismic flare-up along this region reflects growing agitation on one of the planet's largest tectonic plates- the Pacific plate. Increasing seismic volatility along this region of Kamchatka could have serious ramifications for every tectonic plate that comes into contact with the Pacific plate- from the South Pacific to South America. A similar, more intense earthquake swarm occurred along the periphery of the Pacific Plate near the Santa Cruz Islands in February of this year. Is the Pacific plate on the verge of a large-scale change?
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Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.1 - NE of Namie, Japan

Namie Quake_180513
© USGS
Event Time
2013-05-18 05:48:00 UTC
2013-05-18 14:48:00 UTC+09:00 at epicenter

Location
37.761°N 141.454°E depth=41.5km (25.8mi)

Nearby Cities
50km (31mi) NE of Namie, Japan
61km (38mi) ESE of Watari, Japan
62km (39mi) ESE of Marumori, Japan
63km (39mi) ESE of Kakuda, Japan
278km (173mi) NE of Tokyo, Japan

Technical Details

Bizarro Earth

5.1 Magnitude earthquake ripples through Toronto, Canada

Earthquakes Canada is reporting a5.1-magnitude earthquake just west of Ottawa that was felt as far away as Toronto. The federal agency that monitors earthquakes revised its original report, saying it registered a 5.1-magnitude temblor with an epicenter located about 21 kilometers (13 miles) northeast of Shawville, Quebec, about an hour's drive outside Ottawa. It was felt as far west as Toronto, Canada's largest city, but no damage was immediately reported. Twitter erupted with reports of buildings shaking in Ottawa for several seconds. Ontario's premier, who lives in Toronto, tweeted that her house was shaking. Ontario Provincial Police in Arnprior, Ontario, not far from the epicenter, say they have received no reports of damage. The original report said a 4.8-magnitude quake was centered near the town of Braeside, Ontario. - HP
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Cloud Precipitation

Video: Strange weather phenomena for the first days of May 2013


Bizarro Earth

Alaska's Pavlof Volcano rumbles- unleashes 20,000 ft cloud of ash

Eruptions from Pavlof Volcano continued on Wednesday after rumbling to life earlier in the week. The 8,261-foot peak on the Alaska Peninsula awoke Monday morning, kicking off a "low-level eruption of lava," according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO). Sitting about 30 miles northeast of the community of King Cove, Pavlof is a frequently-active volcano that last erupted in 2007. The volcano's rumbling has strengthened this week. At about noon Tuesday, satellite images showed a lava flow had coursed a third of a mile down the northern side of the volcano.
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By late Tuesday, an ash plume extended 15,000 feet above sea level, moving downwind to the northeast for up to 100 miles before dispersing. The National Weather Service issued a "Significant Meterological Event" warning, called a SIGMET, to alert pilots of hazardous conditions in the area. Pavlof continued to rumble Wednesday, with one pilot reporting a dark ash cloud reaching 20,000 feet. Residents of Cold Bay, located 37 miles southwest of the volcano, observed incandescent glow at the summit during the night. Pilot reports and photographs from yesterday afternoon indicate that the lava flow extending down the northwest flank is still active and has generated debris-laden flow deposits, presumably from interaction of hot lava with the snow and ice on the flank.

Blackbox

Hmm...What could finally topple Iran's regime? Earthquakes...

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© Stanislav Filippov/AP/FileEU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iran's chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, leave a podium in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Feb. 26. Ms. Ashton and Mr. Jalili meet in Istanbul today to work toward an agreement on Iran's nuclear program.
In the past half-century, earthquakes have directly contributed to the overthrow of at least two authoritarian regimes in Nicaragua and Iran. By exposing government corruption and incompetency, earthquakes wield the ability to inflict political damage to the world's most ironclad regimes with a level of potency matched only by their unpredictability. As EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iran's chief negotiator Saeed Jalili meet in Turkey today to continue working toward an agreement on Iran's nuclear program, the Iranian leadership should heed history's warning: No nuclear program can save a regime from a toppling earthquake.

In 1972, a powerful earthquake devastated Nicaragua's capital, Managua, setting off a chain reaction of public discontent that eventually led to the ousting of the notoriously corrupt Somoza dynasty. For the Nicaraguan people, President Somoza's squandering of international emergency aid following the earthquake was the last straw in a series of blatantly corrupt moves that showed little regard for their wellbeing.

The second instance occurred in September 1978 in Iran, when a 7.7 magnitude earthquake killed more than 26,000 near the eastern city of Tabas. The dismal response of the equally corrupt shah pushed Iran's already bubbling popular uprising to a boiling point, one month after the CIA made its historically erroneous assessment that the country was "not in a revolutionary or even pre-revolutionary situation."

As the Somozas and the shah can attest from their resting place in history's dustbin, earthquakes are much more than nature's most destructive physical force.

Comment: Author Daniel Nisman is the Middle East section intelligence director at Max Security Solutions, a geo-political and security risk consulting firm.

And then we have this:
A Haiti Disaster Relief Scenario was envisaged by the U.S. Military one day before the earthquake
The Militarization of Emergency Aid to Haiti: Is it a humanitarian operation or an invasion?