Dawn
reports that the largest earthquake to hit Iran in 40 years struck the Balochistan region along the Iran-Pakistan border. At least 45 people are dead, but that figure is expected to rise. Earthquaketrack
says it was 7.8 on the Richter scale. At emptywheel, Jim White
notes that two smaller Iranian earthquakes last year killed over 300 people.
posted by Area Man
on Apr 16, 2013 -
26 comments
Those who may have seen articles such as this
Discover Magazine article, may want to know more about the Cascadia fault and the possibility of a Fukushima type earthquake [previously:
here].
Here is the best
summary of the science that led to the discovery of the 1700 earthquake and the history of earlier quakes. Of particular interest is a beautiful piece of data display in
Figure 9 that shows the spacing in time and extent of earthquakes over the last 10,000 years based on evidence of tsunamis produced by the quakes.
Finally, here is a great pieces on
Surviving a Tsunami should the need arise.
posted by BillW
on Feb 1, 2013 -
17 comments
Six natural disaster experts and one government official were
sentenced today to six years in jail for not having warned the populace of the major earthquake that hit L'Aquila, Italy in April of 2009 (
previously).
[more inside]
posted by progosk
on Oct 22, 2012 -
46 comments
“If I had depended on Yéle,” said Diaoly Estimé, whose orphanage features a wall painting of Mr. Jean and his wife, “these kids would all be dead by now.” (
SLNYT)
posted by Nomyte
on Oct 12, 2012 -
14 comments
Following the
March 2011 earthquake in Japan, commercials largely disappeared from television. To fill space between the news reports and lists of missing people, the
Ad Council of Japan put together a number of PSAs. Since there were only five or ten of them, the PSAs
played thousands of times over the course of a few months, searing themselves into the memory of the Japanese public. Most were typical messages about
common courtesy,
perseverance,
listening to your kids,
conservation, and
international support. But
one PSA in particular quickly took on a life of its own, instantly being mashed up with a classic Japanese TV trope:
Robot Transformation Sequences!
[more inside]
posted by azuresunday
on Mar 11, 2012 -
37 comments
On February 22, [2011], 13 [bus passengers] were crushed by an unreinforced brick building at 603-13 Colombo St. I broke half a dozen bones or so, severed a tendon, spent two months in hospital and six months off work. And I was lucky. Twelve people died. I did not know them, but they forever travel with me.
Just after midday, North Carolina native and political scientist
Ann Brower boarded the no. 3 bus to Canterbury University. Shortly afterwards, falling masonry from the
2011 Christchurch earthquake trapped her and the other passengers in the bus. She was the sole survivor. Now, nearly a year later, she
describes her rescue and her recovery.
[more inside]
posted by Sonny Jim
on Feb 12, 2012 -
7 comments
On Monday, Google released
Memories for the Future, a website that allows you to "... walk the scarred coastline [after the Japanese tsunami] virtually". "
... it is possible to see the full extent of the damage by finding an image in Street View and then clicking the “Before” and “After” links at the top to see how the earthquake and tsunami impacted that area." The Japan Real Time blog has a
good introduction and writeup.
posted by woodblock100
on Dec 13, 2011 -
9 comments
Ross Becker's
photographs of Christchurch. The central business district reopens this weekend for the first time since the earthquake (Previously:
1,
2,
3) on February 22, 2011.
[more inside]
posted by doublehappy
on Oct 26, 2011 -
3 comments
This is how it will happen. Let’s pick a day: June 22, 2012. It’s a gorgeous Friday afternoon in the Pacific Northwest, 75 degrees and sunny. It’s been raining for weeks, and in Seattle the freeways are jammed with people fleeing the city to enjoy the rare sunshine. Same story in Portland. Out on the coast, the beach towns are thrumming with tourists.
How a monster earthquake and resulting tsunami would affect the coast and cities of the Pacific NW.
posted by jontyjago
on Aug 26, 2011 -
152 comments
The Honeymoon From Hell. Stefan and Erika Svanstrom had planned a long trip that would start in Singapore in early December and end in China four months later.
But things didn't go exactly as planned. They encountered floods, fires, tsunamis and earthquakes along the way.
posted by mannequito
on May 6, 2011 -
14 comments
Covering Tohoku The Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan (
FCCJ) has posted a special edition of its
No. 1 Shimbun covering the Tohoku Earthquake:
FCCJ members, many of them freelancers, were the first on the scene after the quake and have led coverage since. Weeks after the global media pack left, they're still here. There's articles by veteran Japan reporters such as
Charles Pomeroy who recently retired to Otsuchi after covering Japan for 50 years, to newer stringers such as
Gavin Blair who worked as a "fixer" for foreign prima-donna journos dashing in and out of the disaster zone. There is a photo by photographer
Rob Gilhooly who recently made
a heartbreaking trip into the exclusion zone near the plants. Although not included in No 1 Shimbun, freelancer
Yas Idei provides a Japanese perspective (in English) about the multiple disasters.
Idei's piece about Rokkashomura is pretty enlightening, frightening, and depressing.
posted by KokuRyu
on Apr 12, 2011 -
23 comments
"In November 1855, the Great Ansei Earthquake struck the city of Edo (now Tokyo), claiming 7,000 lives and inflicting widespread damage. Within days, a new type of
color woodblock print known as namazu-e (lit. "catfish pictures") became popular among the residents of the shaken city. These prints featured depictions of mythical giant catfish (namazu) who, according to popular legend, caused earthquakes by thrashing about in their underground lairs. In addition to providing humor and social commentary, many prints claimed to offer protection from future earthquakes."
posted by madamjujujive
on Apr 8, 2011 -
19 comments
Eerily calm - Civil Defence New Zealand has released footage of post-earthquake Christchurch.
posted by Catch
on Mar 23, 2011 -
12 comments
Thinking about natural disasters in your area? There's a map for that! For earthquakes,
there is an interactive map of the US showing the maximum peak ground acceleration that your area has a 10% chance of encountering over the next ten years (about
PGA,
worldwide risks), and a
map of global tsunamis. For weather, look at
all F5 tornadoes in the US,
tornado risks abroad,
US hurricanes and cyclones (this map can also do hail, floods, drought and other weather hazards), and
billion dollar natural disasters in the US. For bonus worries:
global nuclear sites and
volcanoes.
More generally, a PDF of
Presidential disaster declarations and
Reliefweb's global crises maps. And a
big map of all natural disasters going on right now.
posted by blahblahblah
on Mar 14, 2011 -
23 comments
Amidst the massive aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami being discussed in
this thread, the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plants
continues to unfold. For objective information, discussion, and analysis of the ongoing efforts to stabilize the fuel cores in the boiling water reactors of the type in Fukushima, nuclear engineers such as
@arclight are providing laypeople with a much needed crash course on the inner workings of nuclear reactors.
[more inside]
posted by Dr. Zira
on Mar 12, 2011 -
3157 comments
