Two years after the earthquake that defined Japan’s recent history, the cleanup is well underway. And The Atlantic’s In Focus has the before-and-after shots, down to the exact angle. (side-by-side photos by Reuters/Kyodo)
Italian earthquake kills at least 15: The second big earthquake in the Emilia-Romagna region in ten days, the 5.8 magnitude quake is the deadliest to hit the country since the 2009 L’Aquila quake, which killed 300 and left many homeless. (Above: A video showing the shaking in a home affected by the quake.)
This poor woman may just as well have been starting at a wall after China lost foreign internet access for roughly an hour on Thursday. A variety of reasons have been suggested — censorship, a potential tightening of the “Great Firewall,” an underwater cable damaged due to Wednesday’s Indonesia earthquake — but to put it simply, accessing the information superhighway wasn’t much fun for many in China. (photo by Dan Chung/The Guardian)
» “The only problem we had was people panicking”: In Indonesia, one of the countries most damaged by 2004 earthquake and tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands, the quake stirred up terrible memories of that incident. Indonesia even called a tsunami warning. However, this quake was hundreds of miles off the coast and seismologists say it rattled horizontally, making a tsunami unlikely. Hours after the initial warning, there was no noticeable rise in sea level. Indonesia is however not out of the woods yet — the 8.2 aftershock was only one of the post-quake rattles in the region.
» Why so little damage? To put it simply, a combination of factors. First, the quake hit in a mountainous area without many buildings, limiting the amount of damage in the immediate region. Second, the area has had numerous earthquakes, including a deadly 8.0 quake in 1985, so building regulations had greatly improved to the point where serious damage could be avoided. The result is that the quake, while widely felt, didn’t cause the kind of serious damage it could have.
» Get ready Tuesday morning: In honor of Missouri’s earthquake awareness month and timed in honor of the New Madrid Earthquake, millions will take part in a giant earthquake drill that starts at 10:15 CST. Will you take part? You never know when another earthquake might hit.
Set your watches: At 3:45 a.m. CST, it will have been 200 years since the strongest earthquake Middle America has ever seen. One of four major earthquakes from the 1811-1812 era, the New Madrid Earthquake (which averaged about 7.8 in magnitude) was felt hundreds of miles away and was so powerful that it destroyed the Missouri town that gives it its name. But could it happen again? Experts say it’s likely, and the damage could be far worse. “If another quake of the magnitude of the New Madrid Quake of 1811 should hit the region, it would be the worst natural disaster in American history,” Arkansas state auditor Charlie Daniels wrote in the 1990s. ”Almost all of downtown Memphis would fall.” Is that enough to fret over, though? (Photo: 1904 photo of an earthquake fissure filled with intruded sand in Mississippi County, Missouri, originally created during the New Madrid Earthquake. Photo via USGS; see more photos here.) source
These earthquakes were sitting there waiting to happen. We have triggered these earthquakes.Seismologist John Armbruster • Discussing the recent string of earthquakes in Ohio. If you live in that state, you might have noticed up to a dozen small earthquakes since last spring. There hasn’t been a measured earthquake in the area ever until last March. Apparently, the disposing of waste water into the ground (during a energy-releasing process called “fracking”) may have flowed into an earthquake fault line. This same problem has happened in Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas. In Arkansas alone, 1,000 mini-quakes were measured. source (via • follow)
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SPARKS, Okla. - Oklahomans more accustomed to tornadoes than earthquakes suffered through a weekend of temblors that cracked buildings, buckled a highway and rattled nerves. One quake late Saturday was the state’s strongest ever and jolted a college football stadium 50 miles away and was followed early Sunday by a jarring aftershock.
Welcome to the club, Oklahoma.
Ironically, it was on the same day that millions of Californians took part in a statewide earthquake drill.
Video, from Eric Fischer:
Green dots are tweets about earthquakes. Gray dots are tweets about other topics. Each frame is one second (total of 12 minutes). Thanks to Natural Earthfor the land, water, and boundary shape data and the Twitter Streaming API for the tweets.
Neat little graphic.
GRAPHIC: Examining U.S. nuclear reactor/fault line geography
Some nuclear power food for thought: A lot of tumult has been taking place here in America over the nuclear crisis unfolding in Japan. This has ranged from rational concerns (this model of reactor seems unsafe!) to the not-so-rational ones (I need to buy potassium iodide RIGHT NOW!). With that in mind, we’ve decided to focus on a simple, practically important question; if the Mark 1 Reactor is indeed inferior on safety, where are ours and are they earthquake safe? The map tells the tale: 23 plants are presently using a Mark 1, all of which are in the eastern half of the country. (h/t to the USGS, Reuters and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the sources of the maps we used). source
Now seems like a good time to bring this back to the fore, considering that the quake happened near a nuclear power plant.
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