Earthquakes
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Seismograph

Woman dies as 5.7 magnitude earthquake hits India-Bangladesh border

Agartala/Guwahati/Shillong
Hindustan Times
Tue, 03 Jan 2017 15:24 UTC
India-Bangladesh earthquake map
© USGSMagnitude 5.7 earthquake hit India-Bangladesh border region.
One women was killed and few other injured when a moderate earthquake measuring 5.7 magnitude on the Richter scale hit Tripura on Tuesday, triggering landslides in the hill state and jolting the country's northeast region.

There was no report of any major damage from other states, officials said.

The epicentre of the quake was Dhalai in northern Tripura at a depth of 28 km.

Kamalini Kanda, 50, died of heart attack out of fear during the tremor at Kamalpur in Dhalai district in Tripura, an official of the Tripura Disaster Management Centre said.

Five other people were injured in different parts of the state during the quake.

The official said at least 50 house were damaged, some badly, as landslides occurred in different places of Dhalai district. The earthquake blocked roads after trees were uprooted.

The quake hit most states of the northeastern region at 2.39 pm, triggering panic.
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Attention

Earthquakes continue at California-Mexico border, 250 small quakes since New Year's Eve

Rong-Gong Lin, II
Los Angeles Times
Mon, 02 Jan 2017 03:00 UTC
Brawley earthquakes map
© USGSThis map, generated about 5 p.m. on Jan. 1, 2017, shows the Brawley earthquake swarm that began on New Year's Eve.
A swarm of more than 250 small earthquakes have struck since New Year's Eve near the California-Mexico border, causing unease among residents and attention from scientists.

The strongest earthquake in the sequence was magnitude 3.9, striking directly underneath the town of Brawley, about 170 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

The earthquakes struck in the southern end of the Brawley Seismic Zone, a seismically active region where tectonic plates are moving away from each other and the Earth's crust is getting stretched out "and basically adding land," said Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson.

The Brawley Seismic Zone is particularly important to watch because it is the region that connects the San Andreas and Imperial faults, both of which can produce damaging earthquakes. The seismic zone extends for about 30 miles from the city of Brawley, across the Salton Sea's southern half, and ends near Bombay Beach.

Comment: Swarm of 100 small earthquakes strikes near California-Mexico border

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Seismograph

6.0 Magnitude Earthquake South of Fiji Islands


Earthquake Track
Mon, 02 Jan 2017 14:58 UTC
Graph
UTC time: Monday, January 02, 2017 13:14 PM

USGS page: M 6.0 - South of the Fiji Islands

2017-01-02 13:14:02 UTC 6.0 magnitude, 549 km depth
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Bizarro Earth

Year of rumbles - New Zealand had the most earthquakes in 2016


NZCity
Sun, 01 Jan 2017 17:43 UTC
Earthquake Damage
© Getty ImagesDamage at the Waiau Lodge Hotel in Kaikoura after an earthquake on November 14.
They're not called the shaky isles for nothing.

New Zealand experienced a record breaking 32,828 earthquakes in 2016.

There were also 80,000 landslides, two tsunamis and a volcanic eruption to cap off a year described by GeoNet as "the groundbreaker".

The previous biggest year was 2011 - the year of the deadly Christchurch earthquake - when 29,000 were recorded, compared to the usual average of 20,000 a year.

"You'd be hard pressed to find someone who wasn't impacted, in some way, by earthquakes in New Zealand this year," GeoNet's Sara McBride wrote in a blog post.

Usually quake-immune Auckland felt the ground rumble during the first of two magnitude seven quakes.

Normally the country only gets one quake a year above a magnitude seven, so when a 7.1 hit the northeast coast in September causing minimal damage on land, many thought that box had been ticked.

But earthquake-weary Christchurch and the often-shaky capital Wellington were rocked again by the devastating Kaikoura magnitude 7.8 earthquake just two months later.
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Bizarro Earth

Residents in Oswego County, NY report possible explosion, earthquake in Southern Tier

Emily Burkhard
My Twin Tiers
Sat, 31 Dec 2016 19:06 UTC
broome couty NY
People from Owego to Broome County reported feeling an "explosion" noise around 5 p.m. Saturday. WICZ reports that residents from Broome County all the way down to Northern Pennsylvania have reported odd shaking and felt their houses and windows shake.

According to WICZ the Tioga County Sheriff's Department did not say if they received any calls. They told WICZ they "have no comment or information at the moment."

The Broome County Sheriff's office told WICZ about reports coming from social media about "a yellow cloud of smoke."

Though they did not receive any calls about any clouds. They continued investigating those claims Saturday afternoon, but said they "don't even know where to begin because reports were coming from too many different locations."

The Firewire in Tioga County, posted that the boom was "heard over 100 miles into PA."

The National Weather Service in Binghamton confirmed that "nothing naturally occurred that was out of the ordinary." Officials added that the accounts sound like they describing a small earthquake, but there was no evidence to confirm that one had actually happened.
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Seismograph

Swarm of 100 small earthquakes strikes near California-Mexico border


KABC-TV
Sun, 31 Dec 2017 20:09 UTC
Brawley earthquake swarm
© USGSA swarm of more than 100 small earthquakes hit near Brawley, Calif., on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2016, according to the California Institute of Technology.
A swarm of more than 100 small earthquakes hit near the California-Mexico border on Saturday, according to the California Institute of Technology.

The swarm struck near Brawley, which is about 125 miles east of San Diego and 20 miles north of the border.

The first earthquake registered a magnitude of 1.1 at about 3:30 a.m.

The biggest earthquake so far was a 3.9 magnitude, but scientists said larger quakes were possible and the shaking may continue for several days.

Officials stated the swarm was more than 30 miles from the San Andreas Fault and was not expected to trigger a major earthquake along the fault.

Comment: A few days ago three large earthquakes hit near the Nevada-California state line.

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Seismograph

Shallow 4.1 magnitude temblor strikes eastern Turkey


Daily Sabah
Sat, 31 Dec 2016 21:05 UTC
Graph
A 4.1 magnitude earthquake shook eastern Van province Saturday, the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute of Boğaziçi University has announced. .

There are no reports of casualties or injuries following the earthquake.

The epicenter of the quake was reported to be Lake Van, occurring at 03:21 p.m. local time (12:21 p.m. GMT), at an undersea depth of 5 kilometers.

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake that hit Van on Oct. 23, 2011, caused great destruction in the city. 604 people were killed and over 4,000 people were reported wounded.
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Arrow Up

Over 6,500 earthquakes felt across Japan in 2016, THREE times more than previous year


NDTV
Fri, 30 Dec 2016 14:43 UTC
Japan earthquake damage
JMA confirms over 6,500 quakes struck Japan this year, three times more than in 2015
The number of noticeable earthquakes that struck Japan in 2016 exceeded 6,500, three times more than in the previous year, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Friday.

As of 7 p.m. on Thursday, a total of 6,566 quakes with an intensity measured on the Japanese seismic scale hit the archipelago, up from 1,842 in 2015, according to the figures revealed on Friday.

The JMA scale used to measure the intensity of earthquakes runs from zero to seven, with zero being the weakest, and focuses more on the affected areas than on the intensity of the tremors as is the case with the Richter scale, Efe news reported.

More than 10,000 earthquakes struck the country in 2011, most of them aftershocks from the devastating earthquake that triggered the tsunami which led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the worst since Chernobyl.

Although the number of quakes has decreased considerably since then, the Japanese agency said the increase this year could be attributed to the powerful earthquakes that struck the Kumamoto prefecture in the southern island of Kyushu in April.

Comment: Today a 5.5 magnitude quake struck near Japan's east coast according to USGS.

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Bizarro Earth

Increased seismic activity at Alaska's Bogoslof volcano

Zoë Sobel
Alaska Public Media
Thu, 29 Dec 2016 06:10 UTC
Bogoslof Island
© T. Keith, U.S. Geological SurveyAlthough Bogoslof Island is uninhabited, it is an important breeding ground for sea birds, seals and sea lions.
Seismic unrest continues at Bogoslof volcano. Scientists are watching the eruption around the clock — even though monitoring stations are far from the site.

Chris Waythomas, of the U.S. Geological Survey, is observing a particular indication of increased seismic activity: volcanic tremors.

"You can think of it as the sort of signal you might get if you were to seismically monitor an organ pipe," Waythomas said. "As air moves through the pipe, it resonates. When it impinges on the pipe, it produces motion and that's what we're kind of measuring."

Waythomas said the problem is there's a lot of wind and that can obscure the signal.

"It looked to us like there was increase in this tremor signal," Waythomas said. "We wanted to alert everyone it was possible this could be accompanied by a large steam or ash emission."

The Alaska Volcano Observatory also has access to satellites which they use to look for steam or ash plumes and thermal signals, but cloud cover is making it difficult to confirm.

Bogslof volcano began erupting last week.
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Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 6.2 earthquake hits region in eastern Indonesia


Channel News Asia
Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:05 UTC
Earthquake
A 6.2-magnitude earthquake was felt in the Indonesian resort island of Bali early Friday (Dec 30), an AFP correspondent said, but there was no tsunami alert and no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The quake hit around 300 kilometres east of Bali at a depth of around 72 kilometres just off the island of Sumbawa at 6.30am (2230 GMT Thursday), the US Geological Survey said.

"The earthquake was quite long. Most people had just woken up and they started running out from their homes. My family and I also ran away because we were afraid," Djunaedi Garib who lives in Hambala, southeast of the epicentre, on the island of Sumba told AFP.

In an initial assessment, the USGS said there was a low likelihood of casualties or damage. Indonesia's disaster agency said officials were checking to see if the quake had had any impact.

Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide.

Source: Agence France-Presse
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