Southern California has been hit by a 7.1-magnitude
earthquake, the biggest tremor to strike in 20 years.
The quake struck at the shallow depth of 0.6 miles and its epicenter was near
the city of Ridgecrest, about 150 miles north-east of Los Angeles.
On July 4, a 6.4-magnitude quake hit the same area at a depth of nearly 6.5
miles.
The earthquake was felt as far away
as Las Vegas in the neighboring state of Nevada and over the border in Mexico.
California Governor Gavin Newsom
offered his heartfelt support to all those affected, and has requested a
Presidential Emergency Declaration and federal aid to help.
Fires have broken out and emergency
services are responding to calls across the state after the quake.
Kern County Fire Department Chief David Witt said about 1,800 people had no
power after the quake, but added there were “nothing but minor injuries…
such as cuts and bruises, by the grace of god”.
According to the San Bernardino County Fire Department, “damage is more
significant than yesterday’s quake”, and said they were tackling blazes
and gas leaks.
Officials said it was still unclear how much damage had been caused and how
many people had been injured in the state.
The LA Fire Department however said nobody had been killed or injured. A
statement after the latest quake said the authorities had seen “no major
infrastructure damage” after a survey of the city.
Crowds at a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game were seen leaving their seats
when the quake struck, although the players themselves continued playing.
A US Navy weapons testing station near Ridgecrest was also affected.
NAWS China Lake – the Navy’s single largest landholding, covering an area
larger than the state of Rhode Island – announced on Facebook it is “not
mission capable until further notice”, without providing details.
In Las Vegas, a basketball match between the New York Knicks and the New
Orleans Pelicans was abandoned because of the tremors.
The quake hit at 20:19 local time on July 5, the US Geological Survey (USGS)
said.
After July 4 event, seismologists had been warning that aftershocks could
continue for a prolonged period of time.
California is prone to earthquakes as it lies on a number of faults – regions where tectonic plates come together.
At least 335 people have been killed and thousands more injured after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake has shaken the northern border region between Iran and Iraq on November 12.
The majority of those who died were in Iran’s western Kermanshah province. Nearly 4,000 were said to be injured.
Seven people died in Iraq, where people fled into the streets in Baghdad.
Mosques in the capital have been broadcasting prayers through loudspeakers.
One Iranian aid agency said 70,000 people needed shelter after the quake, one of the largest this year.
Iranian state news agency Irna quoted an emergency official as saying 3,950 were injured in Iran alone.
Most of the victims were in the town of Sarpol-e Zahab, about 10 miles from the border, Iran’s emergency services chief, Pir Hossein Koolivand was quoted as saying on Iranian state TV channel Irinn.
Sarpol-e Zahab’s main hospital was severely damaged, leaving it struggling to treat hundreds of wounded, state TV reported.
Many homes in the mountainous area are made of mud bricks and are at risk of collapse in a significant earthquake like the one that struck on November 12.
Damage was reported in at least eight villages, the head of Iran’s Red Crescent Organization, Morteza Salim, told the channel.
“Some other villages have suffered power cuts and their telecommunications system has also been disturbed,” he said.
Rescue teams were being hampered by landslides, Pir Hossein Koolivand said.
On the Iraqi side, the most extensive damage was in the town of Darbandikhan, 47 miles east of the city of Sulaimaniyah in the Kurdistan Region.
“The situation there is very critical,” Kurdish Health Minister Rekawt Hama Rasheed told Reuters.
The Iraqi ministry of health said 321 people had been wounded in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the quake hit at 21:18 local time, about 19 miles southwest of Halabja, near the northeastern border with Iran.
The strike occurred at a relatively shallow depth of 14.4 miles, and tremors were felt in Turkey, Israel and Kuwait.
A new strong earthquake has hit central Italy on October 30, Reuters reports citing the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and local broadcasters.
The 7.1-magnitude earthquake strikes near of Norcia, 100 miles from capital Rome.
This comes only three days after two more tremors shook the region on October 26, leaving villages partly destroyed.
Photo Getty Images
There were no immediate reports on damage or casualties caused by the quake.
But local RAI TV reports that the quake was powerful enough to wake the residents of Rome, who reported walls of the buildings shaking.
Initial reports on the magnitude of the tremors varied – while USGS and Italian media talked of a 7.1-strong earthquake, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said the tremor was 6.6-magnitude.
Italy’s National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks (CGR) cautioned on October 28 that more powerful earthquakes could hit the region in the nearest future, identifying at least three areas at risk for further seismic activity.
“There is no current evidence that the [seismic] sequence underway is coming to an end,” the commission warned.
Western Indonesia has been hit by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, the US Geological Survey (USGS) reports.
There have been no immediate reports of damage.
According to the USGS, the earthquake struck at 19:49 local time. It said the epicenter was 500 miles south-west of the city of Padang, and 15 miles deep.
Indonesian officials issued a tsunami warning for the regions of West Sumatra, North Sumatra and Aceh.
Australia also issued a tsunami warning for Cocos Island and Christmas Island in the Pacific. It also issued a tsunami watch for Western Australia but this was later lifted.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said evacuations were not required on the islands but advised people to “get out of the water and move away from the immediate water’s edge”, because of the risk of dangerous waves and currents.
Authorities in India said their initial assessment was that there was no tsunami threat. Sri Lankan media also reported the country’s disaster management centre as saying there was no threat.
The earthquake was felt strongly in Padang for a few seconds, AFP reports, with people running out of their homes to higher ground.
Traffic ground to a halt and there was a sense of panic on the streets.
In 2004, an 8.9 magnitude earthquake triggered the world’s deadliest ever tsunami, killing more than 200,000 people.
At least 13 people have been killed after an earthquake has toppled buildings in the south Taiwanese city of Tainan.
The 6.4-magnitude quake struck just before 04:00AM local time when most people were at home asleep.
A baby was among at least four people killed when a high-rise building, containing 100 homes, collapsed.
At least 30 people remain missing. Tainan’s mayor said people were alive but trapped under the rubble and all means would be used to rescue them.
Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who toured the city of two million, said shelters would be set up for those who had lost their homes.
Television footages showed rescue workers frantically trying to reach people trapped in collapsed buildings, using ladders to climb over piles of rubble.
One of the worst affected was the 17-storey Wei Kuan apartment complex, home to at least 256 people.
Photo Reuters
More than 200 people were rescued, but a baby, young girl and two adult men did not survive, officials said. At least 70 people were taken to hospital.
Interior Minister Chen Wei-jen said he feared more people may have been in the fallen apartment block than usual as families gathered to celebrate Chinese New Year.
Chen Wei-jen said investigators would examine whether the building’s construction met requirements.
Residents told how they were able to escape from their homes in the block, using their own tools and ladders.
The earthquake was shallow, meaning its effects would have been amplified, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.
There have also been at least five aftershocks. The quake was felt in the capital Taipei, 200 miles away.
Although the damage does not appear to be widespread, a number of tall buildings have been left leaning precariously.
There are also reports of power outages, and transport links have been disrupted on what is one of the busiest travelling days of the year ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday.
Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and often sees tremors.
More than one million people have been evacuated in Chile after an 8.3-magnitude earthquake hit the country’s central region.
At least five people died when the quake hit at 19:54 local time.
A tsunami alert was originally issued for the entire Chilean coast but has been partly lifted since.
Chile’s deputy interior minister said it was the sixth most powerful quake to hit the country. Seismologists have reported dozens of aftershocks.
Three people died of heart attacks and another two were crushed by falling walls and masonry, officials said.
A local mayor reported a sixth victim, a 19-year-old who was crushed to death in the town of Monte Patria, although this has not been confirmed.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the quake struck off the coast of Chile’s Coquimbo region, 29 miles west of the city of Illapel.
The USGS said it was at a depth of 16 miles, while Chilean seismologists calculated its depth at 7 miles.
Residents of Illapel fled into the streets in terror, local media reported.
Photo AP
People in coastal areas sought shelter on higher ground while those in cities sought safety in the streets.
The earthquake caused buildings to sway in cities as far away as the Argentine capital Buenos Aires.
The tremor struck as thousands of Chileans were travelling to the coast ahead of a week of celebrations for Independence Day.
The authorities were quick to issue tsunami alerts keen to avert a repeat of the slow response to the 8.8-magnitude quake in 2010, which devastated large areas of Chile.
More than 500 people died in the quake and the tsunami it triggered and memories of the tragedy are still raw.
Tsunami alerts were issued shortly after the earthquake struck for the entire Chilean coast as well as Peru, Hawaii, parts of California and as far away as New Zealand.
They remain in effect in some of the worst affected areas, but have been lifted in those further away from the quake’s epicenter.
President Michelle Bachelet said that “once again we must confront a powerful blow from nature”.
The president will travel to the affected areas on September 17.
Officials said 1,800 people in the worst hit town of Illapel were left without drinking water.
Electricity providers said hundreds of thousands of their clients had no power.
Chile is one of the most seismically active locations on the globe.
It runs along the boundary between the Nazca and South American tectonic plates.
A 6-magnitude earthquake has struck northern California, causing injuries and damage to buildings.
The US Geological Survey said the quake struck at 03:20 local time four miles north-west of the town of American Canyon, at a depth of 6.7 miles.
At least 87 people have been taken to hospital in the Napa area, with three of them seriously injured.
California Governor Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency in order to deal with the effects of the quake.
Officials in Napa said in a statement that the quake had destroyed four mobile homes and made 16 buildings “uninhabitable”, as well as causing “approximately 50” gas main breaks and around 30 leaks from water mains.
A 6-magnitude earthquake has struck northern California, causing injuries and damage to buildings
Three historic buildings in the town had been hit and two commercial buildings “severely damaged”, the statement went on.
More than 10,000 households were without power in Napa, about six miles from the earthquake’s epicenter, and the surrounding area, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company said.
A Red Cross evacuation centre has been set up in a church in the city.
The California Highway Patrol in the San Francisco Bay area tweeted that it was “checking over crossings and bridges for obvious signs of structural integrity”, and asked residents to report any signs of problems.
The site of the earthquake was 51 miles from Sacramento and about 30 miles north-east of San Francisco, where many Twitter users say the earthquake woke them up.
Numerous small aftershocks were also reported on Sunday.
California lies on the San Andreas Fault, which forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, two of the large moving plates that form the Earth’s crust.
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and subsequent fires devastated the city.
In 1989, a powerful earthquake struck San Francisco, killing more than 60 people and injuring hundreds.
[youtube Bk3nz-3Tu8Q 650]
This website has updated its privacy policy in compliance with EU GDPR 2016/679. Please read this to review the updates about which personal data we collect on our site. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our updated policy. AcceptRejectRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
