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earthquake
Turkish rescue teams are desperately searching for people trapped under rubble after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the country’s eastern Van region on Sunday.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay, 239 people died and 1,300 were injured in the massive earthquake.
The city of Ercis was the worst-hit, where more than 80 buildings fell.
Tens of thousands of people have been sleeping outside in freezing conditions last night.
Woman pulled from rubble in Van city
Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines.
Two earthquakes in 1999 with a magnitude of more than 7 killed 18,000 people in densely populated parts of the north-west of the country.
The earthquake on Sunday struck at 13:41 (10:41 GMT) at a depth of 20km (12 miles), with its epicentre 16km north-east of Van in eastern Turkey.
The earthquake was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks, also centered north of Van, including two of magnitude 5.6 soon after the quake and one of 6.0 late on Sunday.
The earthquake on Sunday struck at 13.41 (10.41 GMT) at a depth of 20km (12 miles), with its epicentre 16km north-east of Van in eastern Turkey
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been visiting the affected area by helicopter.
The prime minister said that villages close to Van were the worst affected as most buildings there were made of clay bricks.
He thanked other countries for their offers of help, but said Turkey could cope with the disaster on its own.
Up to 80 buildings, including a dormitory, collapsed in the worst-hit city of Ercis, about 60km north of Van, while 10 fell in Van itself.
Ambulances, soldiers and rescue teams rushed to Ercis, a Reuters photographer reported.
Survivors complained of a lack of heavy machinery to remove chunks of cement floors that had pancaked on to each other, the Associated Press reports.
There were also reported serious damage and casualties in the district of Celebibag, near Ercis.
“There are many people under the rubble,” said Celebibag mayor, Veysel Keser.
“We can hear their screams for help. We need urgent help.”
According to Turkey’s seismology institute, Kandilli Observatory, hundreds of people could have been killed.
“We estimate around 1,000 buildings are damaged and our estimate is for hundreds of lives lost – it could be 500 or 1,000,” said Mustafa Erdik from Kandilli Observatory.
Turkish seismologist Polat Gulkan claimed that building regulations were often ignored in Turkey.
“The enforcement of the code provisions is not at the standard that we would like to see it,” Polat Gulkan said.
It was reported that residents of Van and Ercis have been spending the night huddled around camp fires in the open air, fearing more aftershocks.
Rescuers could be seen working by torchlight, using their bare hands and shovels.
Turkish rescue teams are desperately searching for people trapped under rubble after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the country’s eastern Van region on Sunday
The earthquake cut electricity and telephone lines and the authorities in some areas have cut gas to avoid the risk of fire.
More search and rescue teams were being sent from other parts of the country.
Hakki Erskoy, from the Turkish Red Crescent, said aid teams from the north and east of Turkey were being sent to the earthquake-hit area.
Hakki Erskoy said camps were being set up to shelter people and blankets, and that food and water were being sent, along with mobile kitchens.
Military aircraft were being deployed to help with the rescue and relief efforts, Hakki Erskoy said.
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A massive 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck province of Van in eastern Turkey on Sunday, collapsing about 45 buildings according to the deputy prime minister.
So far, only one person was found dead and immediately confirmed, but experts estimated that up to 1,000 people could have been killed.
The worst damage was caused to the town of Ercis, in the mountainous eastern province of Van, close to the Iranian border. The city of Van also suffered substantial damage.
Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said:
“Around 10 buildings have collapsed in the city of Van and around 25 or 30 have collapsed in Ercis, including a dormitory.”
Besir Atalay said authorities had no information yet on remote villages, adding that the governor was now touring the region by helicopter to assess damage.
The Turkish Red Crescent said its rescuers pulled several injured people out of the collapsed dormitory in Ercis, which sits on a geological fault line
The earthquake’s epicenter was in the village of Tabanli.
Turkish authorities did not provide a casualty figure for the moment, but the Kandilli observatory, Turkey’s main seismography center, said the quake was capable of killing many more people.
“We are estimating a death toll between 500 and 1,000,” Mustafa Erdik, head of the Kandilli observatory, told a televised news conference.
Mustafa Erdik estimate was based on the structure of the housing in the area and the strength of the quake.
Television footage showed damaged buildings and vehicles, crushed under falling masonry, and panicked residents wandering the streets.
The Turkish Red Crescent said its rescuers pulled several injured people out of the collapsed dormitory in Ercis, which sits on a geological fault line.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was reportedly heading to Van to see the damage.
At least 50 injured people were treated in the courtyard of the state hospital in Van, a bustling city with many apartment buildings, according to the state-run Anatolia news agency.
Zulfikar Arapoglu, the mayor of Ercis, told NTV television:
“There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed. There is too much destruction.”
“We need urgent aid. We need medics.”
Van province has a population of around 1 million people.
Serious damage and casualties were also reported in the district of Celebibag, near Ercis.
Veysel Keser, mayor of Celebibag, told NTV:
“There are many people under the rubble.”
“People are in agony, we can hear their screams for help. We need urgent help.”
“It’s a great disaster,” mayor said.
“Many buildings have collapsed, student dormitories, hotels and gas stations have collapsed.”
Some houses also collapsed in the province of Bitlis, where at least one person, an 8-year-old girl was killed, authorities said. The quake also toppled the minarets of two mosques in the nearby province of Mus, reports said.
Van’s airport was damaged and planes were being diverted to neighboring cities, NTV reported.
Panicked people spilled into the streets as rescue workers and residents using their bare hands and shovels struggled to find people believed to be trapped under collapsed buildings, television footage showed.
Several Cabinet ministers headed to the area as authorities mobilized rescue teams across the country.
The quake had a depth of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles), which is relatively shallow and could potentially cause more damage.
Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which is crossed by fault lines.
In 1999, about 18,000 people were killed by two powerful earthquakes that struck northwestern Turkey. Authorities blamed shoddy construction for many of the deaths.
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A 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Turkey, in the province of Van, on the border with Iran.
The quake struck at 13:41, local time, at 17 km (10 miles) north-east Van city.
Van province appeared to be particularly badly hit and officials warning of damage to buildings and infrastructure. Some of the buildings in the area of Van have collapsed and casualties are reported.
According to specialists, Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines.
A 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Turkey, in the province of Van, on the border with Iran
In 1999, two earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 hit Turkey and killed almost 20,000 people in densely populated parts of the north-west of the country.
TV footages showed damaged buildings and vehicles, and panicked residents spilling out into streets.
According to Anatolia news agency, the rescue workers were searching the wreckage of a seven-storey building in the city of Van for people thought to be trapped in the rubble.
It was also reported that 50 people had been taken to hospital in Van with injuries.
Bekir Kaya, mayor of Van, told NTV television:
“Two buildings collapsed in Van, but the telephone system is jammed due to panic and we can’t assess the entire damage immediately.”
Zulfikar Arapoglu, mayor of Ercis, another town in Van province, told NTV: “There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed, there is too much destruction.”
“We need urgent aid, we need medics,” Zulfikar Arapoglu is reported by the Associated Press as saying.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) originally gave the magnitude as 7.3 but later corrected it to 7.2.
But Turkey’s Kandilli observatory gave it a preliminary magnitude of 6.6.
The USGS has revised the depth of the quake from 7.2 km (4.5 miles) to 20 km (12.4 miles), which is still relatively shallow and has the potential to cause damage.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was reportedly heading to Van to see the damage.
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Two earthquakes took place on Thursday in Texas and California, according to US Geological Survey.
The first one was a 4.8 magnitude earthquake which took place in Texas, having the epicenter near rural Karnes County, 47 miles southwest of San Antonio. The quake struck at 7:24 a.m. local time and was eye-opening because it was a record breaker.
It was the largest earthquake on record for the area, surpassing a magnitude of 4.3 shock recorded in 1993, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Don Blakeman, USGS geophysicist, said that southern Texas has been experiencing small earthquakes since the 1970s, and that 14 quakes between 2.6 and 3.4 magnitudes have been recorded since 1982.
However, the Thursday morning quake was significantly larger.
Don Blakeman also said it is impossible to predict if there will be any aftershocks. The Texas quake was both big enough to produce some small aftershocks and small enough that they wouldn’t necessarily be expected.
The second earthquake took place in California and had a 3.9 magnitude. The quake had the epicenter two miles southeast of Berkeley near San Francisco. It caused a sharp jolt but no immediate signs of damages or injuries.
The earthquake in California struck at 2:31 p.m. local time and was at a depth of about 6.1 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
San Francisco quake struck in the same day Californians took part in an annual earthquake preparedness drill
Yesterday, the earthquake in California was felt as a sharp jolt in the East Bay area, and across the bay in San Francisco. The quake came almost 22 years to the day after the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the Bay Area during the 1989 World Series.
It also came on the same day Californians took part in an annual earthquake preparedness drill at 10:20 a.m. Thursday. More than 8.5 million people signed up to participate in the 2011 Great California ShakeOut.
A 5.9 magnitude earthquake, which lasted 45 seconds, rocked the US East Coast Tuesday afternoon, hitting areas from North Carolina to as far north as Ottawa, Canada.
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The earthquake, which hit at about 1:51 p.m. ET, measured a preliminary 5.9 and lasted up to 45 seconds, according to the US Geological Survey. It shook office buildings and homes and rattled residents.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) warned of aftershocks.
Earthquake epicenter was reported about 4 miles southwest of Mineral, Virginia, near Richmond, Virginia, and about 80 miles south of Washington, D.C.
The earthquake in Virginia felt in Washington, New York City, North Carolina.
Witnesses reported a low rumble that grew to distinct and sustained shaking, rattling windows and fraying nerves.
Earthquake epicenter was reported about 4 miles southwest of Mineral, Virginia, near Richmond and about 80 miles south of Washington D.C.
No people injured were reported after earthquake hit.
Federal officials say two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, Virginia, were automatically taken offline by safety systems around the time of the earthquake.
Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint say their networks were congested as the quake sent people scrambling for the phones. Twitter lit up with personal earthquake reports up and down the East Coast.
The earthquake was one of the largest ever recorded in the Washington, D.C., area. [googlead tip=”vertical_mare” aliniat=”dreapta”]
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The depth of the quake was only 0.6 miles which partly explains the widely felt shaking.
“On the East Coast you have this old, hard, cold crust that does a lovely job of transmitting the waves … the energy. … This large of an eathquake could definitely have been felt hundreds of miles away,” said Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the USGS.
“Central Virginia does get its share of minor earthquakes, but an earthquake of this size on the East Coast is certainly very unusual,” said seismologist Karen Fischer of Brown University.
“Virginia is not on an active earthquake fault and is roughly in the middle of the North American continental crustal plate. But it has residual fault scars left over from 200 million to 300 million years ago, when it was an earthquake zone, at the time when the Atlantic Ocean rifted apart from Europe. An earthquake that registered 3.9 hit in 2003 was followed by a 4.5 that same year,” she said.
“We are just seeing pressure build up and release on those scars. There is a lot of debate on exactly what is going on down there and exactly how quakes this big happen in this kind of crustal zone.”
“Because the crust under the East Coast is colder and firmer than the West Coast, shocks travel more efficiently through it, accounting for the widely felt shaking.”
[googlead tip=”lista_mare” aliniat=”stanga”] Karen Fischer said the shallow depth of the Virginia quake is only a first estimate and will likely be revised.
“One lesson of this quake is that building codes will likely need to be revisited on the East Coast,” Fischer said.
“Because we are not as conscious of earthquakes here as the West Coast, we will have to see about structural damage to buildings, although I have not heard any damage reports so far.”
David Oppenheimer, a seismologist for the USGS at the Earthquake Science Center in Meno Park, California, said Tuesday’s temblor was not expected “in fact, we don’t even know about the faults in that part of the world.”
David Oppenheimer also said the earthquake is a big concern because the infrastructure in the region is not build to handle the shaking.
“This is the kind of thing that we worry about, infrequent large earthquakes in highly population areas with an old inventory of brick buildings, structures built before there were earthquake codes,” he said.
“You put this earthquake under a more urban area you would have had perhaps loss of life and more damage.”
Officials in the region scrambled to evacuate buildings.
The control towers at John F. Kennedy and Newark Liberty airports were evacuated by the Federal Aviation Administration as a precaution, an FAA spokesman said. Flights out of both airports were canceled.
People from the State Department building in the Foggy Bottom area of Washington were evacuated too.
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Belgrade: People stabbed at the Belgrad Beer Fest [googlead tip=”patrat_mic” aliniat=”dreapta”]
On Friday night an unidentified man stabbed ten people at the Belgrade Beer Fest. Three persons were severely wounded and seven had minor injuries. Over eighteen people were injured in various incidents at the Beer Fest. Two people were taken to the Emergency Center after a protective fence fell on them. A 34-year-old man was taken to the hospital with broken nose and concussion after a fight. [googlead tip=”lista_mica” aliniat=”stanga”]
Over eighteen people were injured at Belgrad Beer Fest.
Beersheva: One civilian dead and seven wounded[googlead tip=”vertical_mediu” aliniat=”dreapta”]
On Saturday night, one Israeli civilian was killed, seven was injured (four with severe wounds), when Grad rockets from the Gaza Strip hit Beersheva, said Israeli emergency services.
Vanuatu: Major earthquake struck Pacific island nation of Vanuatu
US Geological Survey reported a magnitude 7.5 earthquake at 3:55 a.m. on Sunday (12:55 p.m. EDT on Saturday centered 38 miles southwest of Port-Vila (capital town) at a depth of 25.2 miles, followed by a magnitude 5.9 aftershock 20 minutes later. This erathquake had not triggered a Pacific-wide tsunami, saidThe Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The Vanuatu archipelago is located on the “Ring of Fire,” one of the most seismically active regions in the world.
The Vanuatu archipelago is part of the "Ring of Fire," one of the world most seismically active region.
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