Wildlife authorities say a strong earthquake in the Pacific Ocean late Sunday destroyed more than 45,000 endangered sea turtle eggs on the coast of El Salvador.

The director of the turtle conservation program for the El Salvador Zoological Foundation says the 7.4-magnitude undersea quake sent at least three waves at least 30 feet high up the beach and destroyed thousands of nests and just-hatched turtles. It also washed up on about 150 people collecting eggs in order to protect them in special pens hundreds of feet up the beach. The waves injured three.

Program director Emilio Leon said that in the last year and a half the foundation has successfully hatched and released 700,000 turtles from four species at risk of extinction.

A "swarm" of earthquakes that touched off Sunday morning in southern California was still rolling along Monday afternoon, registering more than 300 small to moderate quakes that could be felt from Arizona to San Diego. The swarm is unusual but not as rare as you might think.

During an earthquake swarm, an affected area experiences a rapid-fire series of temblors that are all similarly proportioned, so that no one shock emerges as the obvious source of the rest. According to Julie Dutton, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, diffuse clusters like these are far less common than earthquakes that arrive as one big shake followed by a series of smaller aftershocks.

Dutton estimates that the USGS records about 30 to 40 notable swarms a year, compared with 20,000 to 30,000 total earthquakes. Because swarms are rooted in the same kind of plate movements and stresses that cause more traditional quakes, she thinks that a large part of the phenomenon's apparent scarcity is based on semantics.

Swarms "are really hard to characterize," she told Life's Little Mysteries. "It's all the same mechanisms. It's just a different way of finding equilibrium in the environment."

Where did the swarm start?

The current swarm originates just outside of the small farming town of Brawley, Calif., about 30 miles (45 km) north of the state's border with Mexico. According to Dutton, swarms with magnitude ranges close to the current one arrive in that area at the rate of one or two per decade, with the most recent one hitting in 2005.

The 2005 swarm, which topped out with a 5.1-magnitude event, was surpassed by yesterday's high of 5.5, the cut-off magnitude at which seismologists expect to start seeing casualties in developed countries, according to USGS geophysicist Paul Caruso. But there have been no reported injuries from the Brawley quakes, and Caruso said Monday morning saw a considerable slowing in the area's seismic activity.

Officials say a strong earthquake has shaken a remote area of eastern Indonesia. The quake was located fairly deep below the northern Molucca Sea and no tsunami warning was issued.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the earthquake measured magnitude 6.4 and struck late Sunday. It says it was centered 138 kilometers (85 miles) west-northwest of the town of Tobelo at a depth of 70 kilometers (43 miles). The area is also south of the southern Philippines.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries from the remote area.

Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that make it prone to volcanic and seismic activity.

A giant quake on Dec. 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, half of them in Indonesia's Aceh province.

More earthquakes shook Imperial County overnight, part of a swarm of hundreds of temblors that has the region on edge. More damage was uncovered Sunday night, including about 20 mobile homes that suffered damage to their foundations. Photos show merchandise shaken from store shelves, and part of a home's terra-cotta roof collapsed.

A number of families were displaced and hospital patients evacuated as a result of a swarm of hundreds of earthquakes.

No deaths or critical injuries were reported as a result of the quakes, the largest of which measured magnitudes 5.3 and 5.5. There appeared to be fewer quakes overnight Monday compared with Sunday.

Some buildings were damaged by the earlier quakes, including 20 mobile homes that shifted from their foundations, according to the Imperial County Office of Emergency Services. The office was working with the American Red Cross to set up a shelter for displaced families at the Imperial Valley College gymnasium.

The quakes cause scattered power outages, including at Pioneers Memorial Hospital in Brawley, which lost power for about three hours. Assistant hospital administrator Art Mejia said generators immediately kicked in, but officials decided to evacuate patients as a precautionary measure in case the facility had suffered structural damage.

"We decided to err on the side of caution," he said.

Date-Time:
Monday, August 27, 2012 at 04:37:22 UTC

Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 10:37:22 PM at epicenter

Location:
12.279°N, 88.530°W

Depth:
52.9 km (32.9 miles)

Region:
OFF THE COAST OF EL SALVADOR

Distances:
125 km (78 miles) S (184°) from Usulután, Usulután, El Salvador

144 km (90 miles) SSW (195°) from San Miguel, San Miguel, El Salvador

145 km (90 miles) SSW (211°) from La Unión, La Unión, El Salvador

175 km (109 miles) SSE (157°) from SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador

A swarm of moderately-sized earthquakes struck Imperial County, north of El Centro, California late Sunday morning and early Sunday afternoon, according to the US Geological Survey. The series of temblors, some magnitude 5.0 and above, have been felt as far away as Orange County, and into Arizona and Baja California.

The USGS has so far recorded more than four dozen quakes in Imperial County, many near the city of Brawley. The first quake, a magnitude 3.9 event, struck at 10:02 a.m. (PST) northwest of Brawley and was followed by a series (swarm) of other quakes in the same general area, the USGS said in a statement.

As of 3 p.m. (PST), there have been no reports of serious damage or injuries, according to authorities in the region.

Some buildings in downtown Brawley did receive minor damage, however. Captain Jesse Zendejas of the Brawley Fire Department described the damage as "cosmetic" and said it occurred in at least three older buildings. Assessments were still ongoing as of press time.

Earthquake swarms are events where a local area experiences sequences of many earthquakes occurring over a relatively short period of time. The length of time used to define a swarm varies, but the USGS points out that an event may be on the order of days, weeks, or months, depending on circumstances.

Swarms are differentiated from aftershocks by the observation that no single earthquake can be attributed as the main shock. Earthquake swarms are generally grouped as events that precede volcanic eruptions in areas where volcanoes exist.

Magnitude 6.4

Date-Time
Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 15:05:37 UTC
Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 11:05:37 PM at epicenter Location
2.179°N, 126.893°E

Depth
106.5 km (66.2 miles) set by location program

Region
MOLUCCA SEA

Distances
163 km (101 miles) NNW (340°) from Ternate, Moluccas, Indonesia

240 km (149 miles) ENE (71°) from Manado, Sulawesi, Indonesia

461 km (286 miles) ENE (67°) from Gorontalo, Sulawesi, Indonesia

1022 km (635 miles) SW (236°) from KOROR, Palau

Four consecutive earthquakes - two of them powerful ones - rocked western Nepal in past 12 hours.

With their epicenters in the border area of Rolpa and Rukum districts, the tremors of the first quake were felt in Kathmandu at 10:15 pm last night.

Its magnitude was 5.6 on the Richter scale, according to Dilli Ram Tiwari, survey officer at National Seismological Centre (NSC) in Kathmandu.

The second quake was measured at 10:27 pm yesterday, and it was 4.4 in magnitude.

The NSC has recorded two earthquakes this morning also. The quakes at 6:02 am and 9.40 am were 4.4 and 5.2 on the Richter Scale, Tiwari said.

Source: The Himalayan

Date-Time
Sunday, August 19, 2012 at 22:41:50 UTC

Monday, August 20, 2012 at 08:41:50 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location
4.849°S, 144.583°E

Depth
77.3 km (48.0 miles)

Region
NEAR NORTH COAST OF NEW GUINEA, P.N.G.

Distances
104 km (64 miles) SSE of Angoram, Papua New Guinea

118 km (73 miles) NNE of Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea

141 km (87 miles) WNW of Madang, Papua New Guinea

163 km (101 miles) NNW of Goroka, Papua New Guinea

Palu, Indonesia - A strong earthquake which struck a remote region of northern Indonesia on late Saturday afternoon has destroyed dozens of houses, killing at least four people, disaster management officials said on Sunday. Several villages have not yet been reached.

The 6.2-magnitude earthquake at 5:41 p.m. local time (0941 GMT) was centered about 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) southeast of Sigi Biromaru, the main town of Sigi Regency in Central Sulawesi province. It struck about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to the country's seismological agency.

Rescue workers reached the remote area on Sunday and said damage and casualties were reported in at least nine villages, although efforts were still underway to determine if there are more casualties. "The impact of the earthquake as we have recorded so far is four people dead, seven people seriously injured, and 51 homes severely damaged," a spokesman for Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said.