Strong earthquake hits Indonesia, tsunami warning lifted

[Ah Hai]

Small tsunamis hit Japan's southeast coast

TOKYO (AP): Small tsunamis hit Japan's southeast coast Sunday morning after powerful earthquakes struck Indonesia overnight. There were no reports of damage.

Japan's Meteorological Agency said tsunamis of 4 inches (10 centimeters) to 16 inches (40 centimeters) in height splashed ashore in towns along the coast. It also warned that bigger tsunamis were possible later.

Government officials said there were no reports of damage, and television broadcasts of the coastal areas showed calm beaches and cars driving as normal on roads near the ocean.

A series of powerful earthquakes in remote eastern Indonesia overnight triggered the tsunamis.

Officials and witnesses in Indonesia said the 7.6-magnitude quake and 7.5 aftershock killed at least three people, injured dozens, and badly damaged buildings.

The Japanese Meteorological Agency earlier issued tsunami warnings for a wide swath of Japan's southeast coast for tsunamis up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) high, prompting city officials to warn people to stay away from the ocean.

A huge quake off western Indonesia caused the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed about 230,000 people, more than half of them in Sumatra.

 

[Ah Hai]

Quake jolts California

LOS ANGELES - A MODERATE 5.0-magnitude earthquake rattled southern California on Thursday but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, officials said.

The quake was centred near San Bernadino, some 88km east of Los Angeles at a depth of 13.8km, the United States Geological Survey said.

The quake was felt across the region, shuddering buildings across Los Angeles, witnesses said.

The temblor came roughly six months after a 5.4 earthquake jolted Los Angeles in July, the most powerful seismic shock to rock the city in 14 years.

Geologists say an earthquake capable of causing widespread destruction is 99 per cent certain of hitting California within the next 30 years.

A study published last year said a 7.8 magnitude quake could kill 1,800 people, injure 50,000 more and damage 300,000 buildings.

A 6.7 earthquake in Los Angeles in 1994 left at least 60 people dead and caused an estimated US$10 billion (S$14.5 billion) in damages, while a 6.9 quake in San Francisco in 1989 claimed 67 lives. -- AFP

 

[Ah Hai]

Death toll rises to 18 after Costa Rica quake, dozens still missing : 11 January 2009

Death toll rises to 18 after Costa Rica quake, dozens still missing
Posted: 11 January 2009 0821 hrs



Rescuers move an injured woman away from the danger zone.



SAN JOSE : The death toll from Costa Rica's strongest earthquake in decades rose to 18 Saturday, with scores missing and injured, while some 150 stranded tourists were finally rescued, officials said.

"There are 18 dead and 56 missing," Red Cross spokeswoman Lilia Marin told AFP, adding that 91 people were injured in the temblor and 1,378 were being housed in emergency shelters.

Officials had warned the death toll from Thursday's 6.1-magnitude quake was likely to rise when rescue workers reach isolated villages and cars buried by mudslides.

Some 150 stranded tourists, most from the United States, France, Canada and Spain, were finally rescued Friday and Saturday when helicopters accessed remote areas.

Rescuers also reached tourists stranded on mountain passes near the Poas volcano, the epicentre of Thursday's 6.1-magnitude temblor some 30 kilometres northwest of the capital San Jose.

At nightfall, around 100 tourists were still stranded in the region around San Jose, including around 50 in the area of Cinchona, one of the worst hit by the temblor and accessible only by helicopter, according to the Red Cross.

Helicopters also evacuated a group of tourists trapped on a parking lot at a hotel near the La Paz waterfalls, a top tourist attraction.

Rescue teams struggled in rain and mist to reach hundreds of people stranded in mountainous central zones, as cracked roads, fallen trees and earth impeded their efforts in the farming region.

Collapsed houses lined the road leading to the epicentre of the quake near the Poas volcano, one of the country's most popular tourist sites.

People were still trapped, some of them apparently dead, inside vehicles buried under quake-triggered landslides, an AFP photographer said.

The National Emergency Board (CNE) declared a red alert in the metropolitan area of the central valley where 2.5 million of the country's four million people live that includes San Jose, Cartago, Alajuela and Heredia.

The quake was felt across Costa Rica, a popular ecotourism and beach holiday destination, and in neighbouring Nicaragua.

The strongest quake to shake the country in the last 150 years was followed by more than 1,500 aftershocks, and collapsed homes in and around the capital.

Officials meanwhile reported that the country's leading Cariblanco hydroelectric plant will be out of operation for about a year, after its generators were buried by tons of m&d from flooding and landslides unleashed by the earthquake.

The energy provided by Cariblanco will be replaced through conventional thermal power plants using combustible fuel, translating into higher costs, said officials from the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, the country's largest electricity company.

Costa Rica's Central American neighbours, as well as Colombia, the United States and China, offered aid to victims.

The US army sent two Blackhawk helicopters, based in Honduras, to help with the operations. The government had contracted most private helicopters in the country, which has no army.

US Ambassador to San Jose Peter Cianchette gave the Costa Rican government 50,000 US dollars in emergency assistance funds, the embassy said.

President Oscar Arias called on private companies, church groups and social clubs in Costa Rica "to show their solidarity" with earthquake victims.

"Many Costa Ricans are going through a tough patch," Arias told reporters at the opening Saturday of an emergency aid warehouse at the presidential palace.

"What we most need in this centre (the warehouse) is cooking oil and butter, sugar, salt, coffee, sleeping bags and pillows," a presidential spokesman said.

The quake will have an economic aftermath as it wiped out most of the strawberry and flower farms that make up a good part of the country's farm exports -- close to 10 billion US dollars a year, mainly to the United States.

"The tragedy will have an impact on exports for several months," Chamber of Commerce President Sergio Navas told reporters.

The government said it was investigating a fire that destroyed a warehouse full of emergency supplies for the earthquake victims that was run by the CNE. Apparently, a spark from a soldering operation set a mattress on fire.

The quake opened at least four new, large fissures -- some nearly 100 metres long -- on the flanks of the 2,708-metre Poas volcano.

Experts said the fissures and new smoke holes that dot the mountain do not denote greater volcanic activity.

- AFP/ir

 

[Ah Hai]

Moderate earthquake hits China Posted: 15 January 2009

BEIJING: A 5.0-magnitude earthquake struck southwest China early on Thursday, shaking an area that was hit by last year's Sichuan disaster, the US Geological Survey said.

The quake hit at 2:23 am (1823 GMT Wednesday), 90 kilometres northwest of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, at a depth of just eight kilometres, the USGS said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The 8.0-magnitude Sichuan earthquake on May 12 last year was the worst in a generation in China, flattening entire towns and leaving more than 87,000 people dead or missing. - AFP/de

 

[Ah Hai]

Strong quake hits Indonesia Posted: 23 January 2009 0516 hrs

JAKARTA - A 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit the Kepulauan Barat Daya region in Indonesia on Friday, according to the US Geological Survey.

The quake, which occurred at 5:16 am (2016 GMT Thursday), was centred some 316 kilometres (196 miles) off Saumlaki in the Tanimbar Islands at a depth of 141 kilometres under the sea.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage and no tsunami warning was issued.

The Indonesian archipelago sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire where continental plates meet, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake in July last year on the south coast of the main island of Java killed more than 600 people.

A series of dozens of powerful tremors hit Indonesia following 7.6 and 7.5 magnitude quakes that struck off the West Papua provincial capital Manokwari earlier this month.

Around 14,000 people flooded into camps on high ground in the aftermath of those quakes fearing deadly waves after authorities issued and then withdrew a tsunami alert.

The tremors re-awakened bitter memories of similar deadly quakes that hit Manokwari in 2002, as well as the Asian tsunami that killed 168,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province and Nias island in 2004.

- AFP /ls