A strong magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck close to New Zealand
‘s
second-largest city of Christchurch early Saturday local time, wreaking
havoc on older buildings and roads, damaging water pipes and power
lines and leading to an airport shutdown.
There were just two reports of serious injuries,
and authorities were responding to looting in the aftermath of the
quake. The USGS did not warn of the threat of tsunamis, a common
after-effect of an earthquake.
Flightradar24.com, which monitors aircraft in flight, shows the impact of the ash cloud as the area affected by closures expands south across Europe
An Icelandic volcano causing travel chaos throughout the world is erupting more strongly, a geologist warned Saturday, as the European aviation control agency said flight disruption would continue for at least 24 hours.
Eurocontrol said no landings or takeoffs were possible for
civilian aircraft in most of northern and central Europe.
But flights were taking place in southern Europe, including Spain, the southern Balkans, southern Italy, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. Eurocontrol said it expected 6,000 flights in European airspace on Saturday compared to 22,000 normally.
A volcanic eruption in Iceland, which has thrown up a 3.7 mile high cloud of ash and disrupted air traffic in northern Europe, has grown more intense, an expert said on Thursday.
LONDON — Ash clouds from Iceland’s spewing volcano disrupted air traffic across Europe on Thursday as authorities closed air space over Britain, Ireland and the Nordic countries. Tens of thousands of passengers were stranded as flights were canceled and it was not clear when it would be safe enough to fly again.
Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority said non-emergency flights would be banned in all airports until at least 6 p.m. (1700 GMT, 1 p.m. EDT). Irish authorities also closed their air space for at least eight hours, along with closures by aviation authorities in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
One of the really “Big Ones” to shake theUnited States was a magnitude-9.0 earthquake along the Pacific Northwest coast more than 300 years ago, before the arrival of huge numbers of people and development, that sent a catastrophic tsunami to Japan.Were something like that 1700 quake to occur today — and it certainly could, seismologists say — enormous destruction and loss of life would result in a region that is home now to big cities and millions of people.
via Chilean earthquake hints at dangers of Big One for USA – USATODAY.com.
DENVER — In the last two weeks, more than 100 mostly tiny earthquakes a day, on average, have rattled a remote area of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, putting scientists who monitor the park’s strange and volatile geology on alert.
Researchers say that for now, the earthquake cluster, or swarm — the second-largest ever recorded in the park — is more a cause for curiosity than alarm. The quake zone, about 10 miles northwest of the Old Faithful geyser, has shown little indication, they said, of building toward a larger event, like a volcanic eruption of the type that last ravaged the Yellowstone region tens of thousands of years ago.
SAN FRANCISCO – A magnitude-6.5 earthquake struck off the coast of Northern California Saturday afternoon, damaging buildings, knocking out power in several coastal communities and leaving a trail of broken windows and dishes south of the Oregon border.
The powerful quake hit at about 4:27 p.m. PST about 22 miles from Ferndale, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
Residents of an apartment building in Eureka were evacuated, and an office building and two other commercial structures were declared unsafe for occupancy, according to Humboldt County spokesman Phil Smith-Hanes.
PADANG, Indonesia – Medical teams, search dogs, backhoes and emergency supplies were flown into the devastated western coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island Friday to bolster frantic rescue attempts for thousands buried by a powerful earthquake.The official death toll from Wednesday’s 7.6-magnitude quake stood at 715, the Health Ministry’s crisis center chief Rustam Pakaya told The Associated Press. He said more than 2,000 people were injured and “thousands” missing based on reports from relatives, though he could not put a firm number yet on the missing.
One U.N. estimate said as many as 1,100 may have died.
Bright orange lava spews up into the air, dark smoke mingles with the clouds and the gloomy night takes on an ominous red glow.
Towering 1,200ft above the tropical stillness of the Sunda Strait in Indonesia, one of the most terrifying volcanoes the world has ever known has begun to stir once more.
Almost 126 years to the day since Krakatoa first showed signs of an imminent eruption, stunning pictures released this week prove that the remnant of this once-enormous volcano is bubbling, boiling and brimming over.
LOS ANGELES — Scientists have detected a spike in underground rumblings on a section of California’s San Andreas Fault that produced a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in 1857.
What these mysterious vibrations say about future earthquakes is far from certain. But some think the deep tremors suggest underground stress may be building up faster than expected and may indicate an increased risk of a major temblor.
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