Earthquakes

Powerful Quake Hits Off Coast of New Zealand
Fox News

A 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck near New Zealand's remote Kermadec Islands early Tuesday, New Zealand's GNS Science geological agency said.

New Zealand's Ministry of Civil Defense issued no tsunami warning following the quake, while the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said in a bulletin on its Web site that "no destructive widespread tsunami threat exists based on historical earthquake and tsunami data" for the Kermadec area.

The Hong Kong Observatory said the quake was centered about 630 miles south-southwest of Nuku'alofa, Tonga and was recorded in Hong Kong at 1532 GMT Monday, or 4:19 a.m. Tuesday New Zealand time.

The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 7.0 and said its depth was 12.5 miles.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center noted quakes of this magnitude "sometimes generate local tsunami that can be destructive along coasts within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the earthquake epicenter."

Only the Kermadec's Raoul Island is inhabited, with up to six New Zealand Department of Conservation workers living there at any time.

 Source
 
   back to top     see End Time News Headline Archive       see End Time News Sources     what's new       home
 

Earthquakes

Major quakes hit Japan and Indonesia
CNN

Both quakes struck within minutes of each other; no reports of injuries

A magnitude 6.9 earthquake rattled Japan on Thursday, within minutes of a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in Indonesia, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries from either quake, but both prompted tsunami warnings, although Japan's Meteorological Agency predicted it would be small, about 50 centimeter (20 inches).

The Indonesian quake occurred at exactly 9 a.m. (0000 GMT), the USGS said. Its epicenter was offshore, about 75 miles (120 km) north of Ternate in the province of Moluccas in eastern Indonesia. The quake was strongly felt in Ternate.

The Indonesian Meteorological and Geophysical Department issued a tsunami warning shortly afterward -- standard procedure for a quake of magnitude 6.6 or higher with an epicenter offshore.

The Japanese quake occurred at 9:21 a.m. (0021 GMT). The USGS initially classified its magnitude as a 7.2, but later reduced it.

The quake's epicenter was offshore, about 80 miles (125 km) south-southwest of Kushiro on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, and about 21.7 miles (35 km) below the Earth's surface.

The Indonesian quake was much deeper -- about 57.9 miles (93 km). In general, earthquakes centered closer to the Earth's surface produce stronger shaking and can cause more damage than those further underground.

Earthquakes between magnitude 6.0 and 6.9 are considered "strong" by the USGS.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said neither quake posed a Pacific-wide tsunami threat. However, "earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within a hundred kilometers of the earthquake epicenter," the administration said.

Source

  back to top      see End Time News Headline Archive      see End Time News Sources     what's new       home
 

Earthquakes

Magnitude 7.0 earthquake hits northern Japan
Yahoo News

TOKYO - A magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit northern Japan on Thursday morning, triggering a small tsunami that apparently caused no damage, Japan's Meteorological Agency said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

The agency said the quake hit at 9:21 a.m. off the eastern coast Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island at a depth of about 12.4 miles.

A 4-inch tsunami rippled at the shore about 35 minutes after the quake.

A warning had been issued for a tsunami of up to 20 inches along the eastern coast of Hokkaido and the northeastern coast of Japan's main island of Honshu. Authorities ordered people to stay away from beaches.

National broadcaster NHK showed footage of the coastal area, but there did not appear to be any damage. The report said the force of the quake had not broken windows or knocked items from shelves.

Source

  back to top      see End Time News Headline Archive      see End Time News Sources     what's new       home
 

Ethiopia food shortages alarming - UN
afrol news

United Nations has expressed concerns on deteriorating food security situation in Ethiopia following reports of severe drought conditions throughout the country.

According to UN statement close to 4.6 million people in Ethiopia are in need of food aid due to a combination of drought and high food prices.

UN spokesperson Michele Montas said relief organizations are grappling with a considerable shortage of supplies, with World Food Program in need of US$136 million for its operations in the Horn of Africa nation.

Recent food prices hike and poor rain season in southern and eastern parts of Ethiopia, which are country's agricultural sites have resulted in serious food shortages in country which led to food prices increase to around 300% in Ethiopia, reports have shown.

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes, who has returned from a visit to Ethiopia said food shortages remains very severe, with numbers of people affected continuing to escalate rapidly.

Although a US $325-million dollar humanitarian appeal launched for Ethiopia in June has been well funded at over 60 percent, Mr Holmes urged donors to contribute more for the next few months to avert the situation.

UN said more than four million Ethiopians need emergency assistance and a further eight million need immediate food relief, indicating that severe floods that hit Ethiopia last year, destroying most of the food crops and successive drought has worsened the situation.

Ms Montas said Monday that flooding in Gambela in southwestern Ethiopia has reportedly displaced nearly 35,000. In response, World Health Organization has provided emergency drugs and supplies for 10,000 people.

For a country like Ethiopia, which is the hardest hit in the horn of Africa, it has no hope for speedy recovery as it has already exhausted its food reserves as the soaring food prices forced government to subsidize basic food commodities.

UN has been providing solid assistance to help Ethiopia address its current challenge. The Horn of African country has a history of the world's worst famine that killed a million Ethiopians in October 1984.

Source

  back to top     see End Time News Headline Archive      see End Time News Sources     what's new       home
 

After four hurricanes, Haiti faces famine
By G. Dunkel

Haiti started the month of August as the poorest country by far in the Western Hemisphere. Then four hurricanes—Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike—hit the country, doing vast and unmeasured damage to its roads and bridges, housing, economy, crops and crop land, schools and hospitals.

The country that already had the least now has much less.

A map on Relief Web, a United Nations service, summarizes the homeless, missing, dead and injured in Haiti. Only one of Haiti’s 10 provinces—the North East—was spared significant damage. (www.reliefweb.int)

The figures on the number of dead are far too low. The Haitian government has stopped counting in order to concentrate on repairing roads and bridges, so it can get food and water to the 900,000 people who have nothing left except the clothes on their bodies.

MINUSTAH, the U.N. forces that began occupying Haiti after the coup in 2004 against President Jean Bertrand Aristide—a coup financed and organized by the U.S.—distributed 2,852,300 meals and 21,710 liters of drinkable water to refugees in Gonaïves from Sept. 5 to Sept. 20. Along with aid from the World Food Program and NGOs, this has kept people from dying of famine.

But it is not nearly enough. Gonaïves is believed to have 200,000 refugees. The city has been inundated by mud from the surrounding mountains. The donated food amounts to slightly less than one meal per person a day.

In Bainet, a small city on the southern coast between Côte-de-Fer and Jacmel, the situation is also catastrophic. Its deputy in parliament, Malherbe François, told the Haitian press, “We have registered 37,989 families affected by these storms. But nine rural communities, which are part of our district, aren’t able to make contact with the city.” So the Haitian government doesn’t really know how many people need aid.

If Haiti doesn’t get substantial and immediate foreign aid, thousands of Haitians could die.

However, Haïtí-Progrès in its Sept. 17-23 edition says the U.N. aid being given comes from a need “to stifle the anger of the people, not from humanitarianism.” Haïtí-Liberté points out that a lot of this aid is being used to compensate the Haitian bourgeoisie for its losses, rather than for the needs of the people.

In addition, the Swiss News Service reported Sept. 19 that the U.N. has received only 2 percent of the $108 million it had requested to aid Gonaïves.

Beyond the immediate threat of famine, Haiti needs to reforest its land so that rain from storms doesn’t produce mudslides, which killed many in the past six weeks.

Haiti’s plant cover is estimated at less than 2 percent. The recent heavy downpours led to severe flooding much worse than in the neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. In the Dominican Republic, plant cover is estimated at 30 percent and far fewer people died.

Haitian Environment Minister Jean-Marie Claude Germain said this process of deforestation dates back to the country’s independence. Intense neocolonial exploitation by France so impoverished the people that the only fuel they could use for cooking was and is charcoal, often sold by the handful. When the U.S. became the neocolonial master of the Caribbean, it maintained and strengthened France’s policies. President Aristide was demanding $20 billion in reparations from France before he was kidnapped from the country by U.S. forces.

Two Haitian organizations in the New York area are collecting funds and medical supplies for use by Cuban doctors in Haiti. Volunteer Cuban personnel provide most of what medical care Haitians get.

Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees is accepting donations and funds at 35 Maple St., 2nd floor, Brooklyn, Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:30 to 8:30 p.m. For more information, call 718-735-4660. Tax-deductible donations can be sent to IFCO/Haitian Relief, 418 W. 145th St., New York, NY 10031.

The Haitian Coalition to Support the Struggle in Haiti (Kakola) is also collecting funds. Checks should be payable to Komite Chalo Jaklen Inc. and sent to KAKOLA, P.O. Box 250459, Brooklyn, NY 11225. For more information, call 718-629-4050. Members of both HWHR and Kakola will take the aid collected directly to Haiti.

Source

  back to top     see End Time News Headline Archive      see End Time News Sources     what's new       home
 

Togo confirms H5N1 bird flu outbreak
Reuters

LOME, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Laboratory tests have confirmed a fresh outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in Togo after around 4,000 poultry died at a village in the small West African state last week, the government said on Wednesday.

Tests conducted in Ghana on samples from dead chickens taken from the village of Agbata, on the eastern fringes of the capital Lome, showed the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus.

"The results from Ghana confirm the presence of the strain of the H5N1 virus that is responsible for bird flu," Agriculture and Livestock Minister Kossi Messan Ewovor said in a statement.

After the outbreak, Togo, which reported several cases of H5N1 last year, had imposed a quarantine on the village.

The H5N1 strain, which has swept through bird populations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, only rarely affects humans but has killed 245 of the 387 people infected globally so far, according to the World Health Organisation.

People can catch the virus from close contact with infected birds or by eating their meat if not properly prepared, but scientists fear the virus could mutate and jump between humans, threatening a much deadlier flu pandemic.

Outbreaks in Africa have caused concern because epidemiologists fear the continent's widespread poverty, lack of proper veterinary and medical facilities and huge unregulated farming sector could allow outbreaks to go unnoticed longer, increasing the risk of the virus mutating. (Reporting by John Zodzi; Writing by Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Richard Balmforth)

Source

  back to top     see End Time News Headline Archive      see End Time News Sources     what's new       home