Tag Archives: damage

Solomon Islands scrambles to reach areas hit by second major quake

map of Solomon Islands

SYDNEY (Reuters) – The Solomon Islands plans to dispatch emergency supplies to areas affected by a 6.9 magnitude aftershock on Saturday, a day after a much larger tremor triggered a tsunami warning that send hundreds of coastal people fleeing into the hills.

General Secretary of the Solomon Islands Red Cross Joanne Zoleveke said the supply boat could take almost 24 hours to reach Makira Island, which lies close to the epicentre of Friday’s deeper 7.8 magnitude earthquake.

Both quakes triggered tsunami warnings which were lifted a short time later.

“We are working with the National Disaster Office of the Government and we’ve mobilised our emergency response teams to accompany the government officers and other international non-governmental organisations that are going on this boat,” Zoleveke said.

Makira Island’s airstrip services small planes incapable of shuttling the volume of aid required for the relief effort.

“We still don’t have that much detail but we know people are really affected by what’s happened,” Zoleveke said.

Zoloveke said based on reports received by two-way radio, Friday’s quake caused significant damage and forced people from homes in the town of Kirakira on Makira Island, about 200 km from the Pacific Island nation’s capital of Honiara.

She said she knew of only one reported casualty, a 25-year-old with non-specific injuries. The remoteness of the region and the failure of communications meant it was impossible to know the full extent of any injuries or damage, she said.

Australia has provided A$50,000 ($37,235) worth of supplies and a helicopter to undertake an initial assessment of affected areas to help target relief efforts, Zoloveke said.

Suzy Sainovski of World Vision in Honiara said staff from the humanitarian organisation in Kirakira saw people fleeing to higher ground.

“One of the reasons we need to get them shelter assistance (is) because it’s the start of the wet season here,” Sainovski said.

($1 = 1.3428 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Jane Wardell and Peter Gosnell; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Christopher Cushing)

Aid trucks reach cut-off New Zealand town as quake bill mounts

Royal New Zealand Air Force personnel lead those stranded by an earthquake to an NH90 helicopter to evacuate them from Kaikoura on the South Island of New Zealand

By Charlotte Greenfield

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – A convoy of 27 military trucks reached the stricken New Zealand town of Kaikoura on Friday, five days after the seaside community was completely cut off by huge landslides caused by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed two people

The convoy, which had been delayed by bad weather on Thursday, carried food and medical supplies and a team of civil engineers, officials said.

Helicopters have also flown provisions to the town from navy vessels anchored offshore since the quake struck early on Monday. More than 1,000 tourists and residents were evacuated from the small South Island fishing town, a whale-watching base that draws visitors from all over the world.

Relief efforts by sea, air and road will continue to supply the town of around 2,000 people as roads remain shut to the public. “Our people are going to be there for a very long time,” a spokeswoman for the New Zealand Defence Force said.

Not all tourists have left, and New Zealand media reported that a local lawmaker and motel owner had complained that some were staying to get drunk and party through the night for a “cheap holiday” as residents tried to clean up.

The quake’s cost could add up to almost NZ$12 billion ($8.4 billion), which could push the government budget back into deficit after two years of surpluses, analysts say.

“This week’s disaster struck in more lightly populated areas but damage to infrastructure has been severe,” said Citibank economists in a research note.

Prime Minister John Key said earlier this week the damage bill would be about NZ$2 billion($1.40 billion), although he cautioned that was only an early estimate. Finance Minister Bill English told parliament the damage was “relatively localized”.

Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide said the total for insurance losses – which excludes losses to land, infrastructure or cars – would be between NZ$1.15 billion and NZ$5.3 billion.

Most residential damage would be covered by the government-owned insurer, the Earthquake Commission, which is backed by NZ$4.7 billion in reinsurance, AIR Worldwide said in a statement.

In 2011, an earthquake in Christchurch, the South Island’s largest city, killed almost 200 people and required a NZ$40 billion rebuild.

Warships from Australia, Canada and the United States, in New Zealand for the Royal New Zealand Navy’s 75th anniversary, have been assisting with Kaikoura’s recovery.

This week’s quake damaged as many as 60 buildings in the capital, Wellington, on the North Island some 150 km (95 miles) to the northeast of Kaikoura.

That included serious structural damage to three relatively recently constructed multi-storey buildings, one of which engineers said would have to be torn down.

The government said on Thursday it would investigate why the newer buildings had been unable to withstand the quake.

($1 = 1.4278 New Zealand dollars)

(Additional reporting by Carolyn Cohn in London and Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengalaru; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Magnitude 6.2 quake strikes near Christchurch, New Zealand after earlier quake

Local residents Chris and Viv Young look at damage caused by an earthquake along State Highway One near the town of Ward, south of Blenheim on New Zealand's South Island,

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A strong new earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 struck New Zealand’s South Island on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, hours after a more powerful quake killed two people and damaged buildings along the east coast of the South Island.

The latest quake was initially measured with a magnitude of 6.8. It struck at about 1.45 p.m. local time (0045 GMT) at a depth of 10 km (6 miles), about 120 km (75 miles) northeast of Christchurch, the USGS said.

(Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Paul Tait)

Magnitude 5.0 quake strikes near Cushing, Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.0 struck near Cushing, Oklahoma, on Sunday damaging several buildings and prompting evacuations, but there were no reports of injuries, authorities said.

The quake was centered 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Cushing, a small city of about 8,000 people some 50 miles west of Tulsa, which is the location of intersecting oil pipelines and is considered a hub for crude oil shipment.

The oil and gas division of the Oklahoma Corporation commission said in a statement that they are in contact with pipeline operators, but so far there were no immediate reports of damage to pipelines.

Cushing authorities said the downtown area was being evacuated due to gas leaks and infrastructure inspection.

The quake was among the larger temblors felt recently in Oklahoma, part of a flurry of seismic activity geologists say is linked to energy production and is fueling growing concern.

People posting on Twitter, including some as far away as Kansas City, Missouri, reported that they felt the shaking.

Pictures on Twitter showed broken concrete that apparently fell from buildings in downtown Cushing and products littering the aisles of stores after being shaken from shelves.

Cushing High School canceled classes on Monday in order to assess damage, according to a message on its Facebook page.

Two smaller earthquakes, one at a 3.1 magnitude and the other at a 3.6 magnitude, rattled the area around Perry, Oklahoma, earlier on Sunday.

About two months ago a magnitude 5.6 quake, one of the strongest ever recorded in Oklahoma, shook the area.

Most earthquakes occur naturally, but scientists have long linked some smaller tremors to oil and gas work underground, which can alter pressure points and cause shifts in the earth.

In a report released last year, the Oklahoma Geological Survey said that the earthquakes were linked to the practice of injecting wastewater from oil production into the ground.

Some of that is related to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves injecting water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into rock to extract natural gas or other products. But the report said fracking is responsible for only a small percentage of the wastewater injected into wells in Oklahoma.

(Reporting by Heide Brandes in Oklahoma City,  Peter Cooney in Washington, Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif. and Chris Michaud in New York; Editing by Chris Reese and Michael Perry)

New earthquake rocks Italy, buildings collapse but no deaths reported

Coffins are seen in the collapsed cemetery of the village of Campi near Norcia, following an earthquake in central Italy,

By Isla Binnie

NORCIA, Italy (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake struck Italy on Sunday in the same central regions that have been rocked by repeated tremors over the past two months, with more homes and churches brought down but no deaths reported.

The quake, which measured 6.6 according to the U.S. Geological Survey, was bigger than one on Aug. 24 that killed almost 300 people. Many people have fled the area since then, helping to avoid a new devastating death toll.

With thousands already made homeless, a leading seismologist warned that the earthquakes could go on for weeks in a domino effect along the central Apennine fault system.

The latest quake was felt across much of Italy, striking at 7.40 a.m. (0640 GMT), its epicenter close to the historic Umbrian walled town of Norcia, some 100 km (60 miles) from the university city of Perugia.

Panicked Norcia residents rushed into the streets and the town’s ancient Basilica of St. Benedict collapsed, leaving just the facade standing. Nuns, monks and locals sank to their knees in the main square in silent prayer before the shattered church.

“This is a tragedy. It is a coup de grace. The basilica is devastated,” Bishop Renato Boccardo of Norcia told Reuters.

“Everyone has been suspended in a never-ending state of fear and stress. They are at their wits’ end,” said Boccardo, referring to the thousands of tremors that have rattled the area since August, including two serious quakes on Wednesday.

Italy’s Civil Protection unit, which coordinates disaster relief, said numerous houses were destroyed on Sunday in the regions of Umbria and Marche, but either they were deserted at the time or most of the residents managed to escape in time.

Civil Protection chief Fabrizio Curcio said no deaths had been reported and around 20 people were injured, none of them critically. He said it was too early to say how many more people had lost their homes.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi promised a massive reconstruction effort regardless of cost and took advantage of the disaster to resume his frequent criticism of the European Union’s public finance rules.

“We will rebuild everything, the houses, the churches and the businesses,” he told reporters. “Everything that needs to be done to rebuild these areas will be done.”

He said he would have “no regard for technocratic rules” and would consider all money spent to make Italy’s schools and hospitals earthquake-proof to be outside EU limits on budget deficits.

Local authorities said towns and villages already battered by August’s 6.2 quake had suffered further significant damage.

“This morning’s quake has hit the few things that were left standing. We will have to start from scratch,” Michele Franchi, the deputy mayor of Arquata del Tronto, told Rai television.

Experts said Sunday’s quake was the strongest here since a 6.9 quake in Italy’s south in 1980 that killed 2,735 people.

Firefighters take care of a woman following an earthquake in Norcia, Italy,

Firefighters take care of a woman following an earthquake in Norcia, Italy, October 30, 2016. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

ARTISTIC LOSS

The destruction of the Norcia basilica was the single most significant loss of Italy’s artistic heritage in an earthquake since a tremor in 1997 caused the collapse of the ceiling of the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi, which is 80 km to the north.

The frescoed basilica, which is the spiritual, historic and tourist heart of Norcia, was built over the site of the home where the founder of the Benedictine order and his Sister St. Scolastica were born in 480.

The basilica and monastery complex dates to the 13th century, although shrines to St. Benedict and his sister had been built there since the 8th century.

Benedict founded the Benedictine order in Subiaco, near Rome. He died in 530 in the monastery at Monte Cassino, south of Rome, which was destroyed during World War Two. That monastery was later rebuilt.

A number of other churches were also ruined on Sunday, Italian media reported, including Norcia’s Cattedrale di Santa Maria, which was built in the 16th century, while the town hall belltower had deep cracks running through its walls.

However, most of Norcia’s homes appeared to have withstood the prolonged tremor, with residents praising years of investment by local authorities in anti-seismic protection.

In the nearby city of Rieti, patients were evacuated from a hospital to allow experts to check on structural damage, while hillroads across the region were littered with fallen rocks.

Sunday’s earthquake was felt as far north as Bolzano, near the border with Austria and as far south as the Puglia region at the southern tip of the Italian peninsula.

It was also felt strongly in the capital, Rome, where transport authorities shut down the metro system for precautionary checks. Authorities also toured the city’s main Roman Catholic basilicas looking for possible damage.

Italy sits on two geological fault lines, making it one of the most seismically active countries in Europe.

Its deadliest quake since the start of the 20th century came in 1908, when a tremor followed by a tsunami killed an estimated 80,000 people in the southern regions of Reggio Calabria and Sicily.

(Writing by Crispian Balmer and Philip Pullella; Additional reporting by Steve Scherer, Gavin Jones and Mark Bendeich; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Larry King)

Italian earthquakes cause widespread damage, but kill no one

An officer of the State Forestry Corp national police stands in front of a collapsed church in Campi di Norcia, central Italy

By Isla Binnie and Antonio Denti

VISSO, Italy (Reuters) – Earthquakes caused widespread damage and terrified residents in central Italy overnight but killed no one, two months after a strong quake left nearly 300 dead and razed villages in the same area.

Several people were slightly injured, but only a few needed hospital treatment, the Civil Protection Agency said.

In Visso, one of the larger hill towns hit, the mayor said most of the damage had been to buildings already weakened by the Aug. 24 earthquake.

“The situation is ugly and you can see the noticeable damage, but luckily I can say it’s better than it looks. We don’t have victims or seriously injured people or anyone missing,” Giuliano Pazzaglini said.

The quake was nonetheless a severe blow to a town that had started to work on rebuilding after the last tremor, Pazzaglini said, and the hours following it were full of anxiety for people in the border area of the Marche and Umbria regions.

Many people slept in their cars. In Campi, a town of about 200, rescue workers set up some 50 beds in a quake-proof building for people who could not sleep in their homes.

“I can’t shake off the fear,” said Mauro Viola, 64, who said he had not slept and had spent the night outside.

“I am afraid to see what my house looks like.”

Police had blocked off the road to his home with a bench, and Viola said a chapel nearby had collapsed.

Boulders tumbled down the valley into roads around Visso. Officials were restricting access to its historic center, awakening grim memories of the leveling of the hilltop town of Amatrice in August.

“The only time I have cried today was when I wasn’t allowed to go into the historic center,” said Visso restaurateur Elena Zabuchynska, 43.

“I thought of Amatrice, all fallen down, and I thought our city center might look like Amatrice.”

RUBBLE

The three main overnight quakes came about two hours apart. Close to Visso, the rose-windowed facade of a late 14th century church, San Salvatore a Campi di Norcia, was reduced to rubble.

The first tremor measured magnitude 5.4, causing many people to flee their homes and the second was stronger at 6.1, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A 4.9 aftershock came a couple hours after that, and dozens of weaker ones followed.

“The first tremor damaged buildings, with the second one we had collapses,” fire department official Rosario Meduri said.

He had come from southern Italy before Wednesday’s tremors to help secure structures damaged by the August earthquake that hit some 50 km (30 miles) to the south.

The quakes were probably a continuation of seismic activity that began in August, Massimiliano Cocco from Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

The fact that the first earthquake was weaker than the second probably helped save lives because most people left their homes before the second, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said on state radio.

The government said it set aside 40 million euros ($44 million) during a cabinet meeting on Thursday for immediate costs related to the earthquakes. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi planned to visit the area hit hardest later in the day.

(Additional reporting by Massimiliano Di Giorgio; Writing by Steve Scherer and Isla Binnie; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Louisiana residents without flood insurance face uncertainty

Paul Labatut carries damaged furniture through flood water outside her home in St. Amant, Louisiana, U.S

By Sam Karlin

BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuters) – Quenton Robins watched on Sunday morning as a giant metal claw clamped down on his mother’s ruined belongings, snapping wooden cabinets with an audible crack as the operator of a giant mechanized arm slowly cleared a mound of debris from her yard in Baton Rouge.

Five feet (1.5 meters) of water swept through the homes in the quiet Park Forest neighborhood just over a week ago, shocking residents who had been told they did not live in a flood zone.

“It’s not a flood zone,” said Robins, a 27-year-old Navy veteran. “At least it didn’t used to be.”

As efforts in Louisiana turn from rescue to recovery, renters and homeowners who do not have flood insurance are facing an uncertain financial future.

Private insurers do not cover flood damage and flood insurance in the United States is underwritten by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Homeowners who live in designated high-risk flood zones are required to carry flood insurance if they have a federally backed mortgage.

In Louisiana, an estimated 42 percent of homes in high-risk areas have flood insurance, according to FEMA. Only 12.5 percent of homeowners in low and moderate-risk zones do.

Many of the areas hit hard by record rainfall last week were not considered at high risk for flooding.

Those residents without flood insurance are eligible for up to $33,000 in FEMA individual disaster assistance funds, although most will likely receive less than that, based on payments following other major disasters.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, FEMA paid $6.6 billion to approximately 1.07 million households and individuals in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, an average of just over $6,000 per grant, according to agency figures. Superstorm Sandy in 2012 produced an average payout of under $8,000 for about 180,000 residents of New York and New Jersey.

FEMA spokesman Rafael Lemaitre said the individual assistance is intended to supplement insurance and to provide short-term relief for immediate needs.

“It’s not designed to make survivors whole again,” said Lemaitre, adding that FEMA recommends all homeowners obtain flood insurance regardless of the risk in their area. He also said residents could apply for low-cost loans from the Small Business Administration.

FEMA has approved more than $55 million in aid so far and some 106,000 Louisiana residents have registered for emergency assistance after the record floods, which killed at least 13 and damaged more than 60,000 homes.

U.S. President Barack Obama plans to visit Baton Rouge on Tuesday.

Down the street from Robins’ mother, retired widow Betty Bailey sat in the shade of her carport, waiting for her damaged possessions to be taken away.

Bailey, who did not have flood insurance, said she moved to the neighborhood in part because it is not in a flood zone. When she applied for FEMA aid, she said they recommended she look into loans to cover her losses.

“How do they know I can afford a loan with all the bills I already have?” Bailey said. “That’s not right.”

Looking out at her neighborhood, Bailey added, “Some of these houses will never be built back.”

(Additional reporting and writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Bill Trott)

Out-of-control California wildfire grows, forces schools to close

Firefighters prepare hose lines to attempt to hold a road during the Pilot Fire near Silverwood Lake in San Bernardino county near Hesperia, California, U.S.

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A wildfire burning out of control in mountains and foothills east of Los Angeles mushroomed more than 50 percent overnight, forcing authorities to order three school districts to cancel classes due to heavy smoke and dangerous conditions.

More than 900 firefighters were battling the so-called Pilot Fire, which has charred some 7,500 acres of bone-dry tinder and brush in the San Bernardino Mountains since it broke out around noon on Sunday.

“We feel it is in the best interest of safety that we keep our students and staff at home,” the Silver Valley Unified School District, which oversees nine schools in Mojave Desert, said in a statement on its website.

Also closing campuses on Tuesday were the Apple Valley and Hesperia school districts in those high desert communities some 90 miles east of Los Angeles.

More than 5,000 homes were under evacuation orders from the Pilot Fire, a highway and several roads were closed and smoke advisories were issued for the Mojave Desert area, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

No homes had been destroyed but Cal Fire said the blaze was only 6 percent contained as of Tuesday morning.

Some 400 miles to the north, the famed Highway 1 along the California coast was reopened to residents, one day after authorities were forced to close it in both directions due to the threat from the Soberanes Fire.

That blaze, which erupted on July 22, has already blackened 67,000 acres in the Big Sur area, destroying 57 homes and 11 outbuildings.

A bulldozer operator died on July 26 when his tractor rolled over as he helped property owners battle the flames, the sixth wildfire fatality in California this year.

Authorities have traced origins of the blaze to an illegal campfire left unattended in a state park about a mile from Highway 1. No arrests have been made so far.

As of Monday, more than 4,800 firefighters battling the flames had cut containment lines around 50 percent of its perimeter.

Firefighters are making gradual progress against the blaze as wildfire season in the western United States reaches its traditional peak, intensified by prolonged drought and extreme summer heat across California.

The conflagration is one of 35 major wildfires that have charred half a million acres in 12 states, mostly in the West, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by David Gregorio)

Two Earthquakes strike Ecuador minor injuries, light damage reported

People gather on the streets minutes after a tremor was felt in Quito

By Alexandra Valencia

QUITO (Reuters) – Two earthquakes struck Ecuador’s coast on Wednesday, causing minor injuries and light damage in the same region where a magnitude 7.8 tremor killed more than 650 people last month.

Wednesday’s tremors, measuring 6.7 and 6.8 in magnitude, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, cut electricity in some coastal areas and sent people running into the streets as far away as the highland capital of Quito, witnesses said.

President Rafael Correa said the epicenter of the first one overnight was the fishing village of Mompiche on the Pacific coast, about 368 km (229 miles) from Quito.

“There are some light injuries because people ran out, or bumped into things,” Correa said on state television, adding there was also some minor damage, mainly to infrastructure already hit by the April disaster.

There was no tsunami warning.

The second tremor struck just before midday, according to the U.S. Geological survey.

The April 16 earthquake, Ecuador’s worst in nearly seven decades, flattened buildings along the coast.

As well as the fatalities, the tremor also injured more than 6,000 people, made nearly 29,000 homeless, and caused an estimated $2 billion in damage, according to the government’s latest tally.

Correa described Wednesday’s first tremor as another aftershock from the April quake. “Despite the alarm and the scare and the possibility of new damage … it’s normal, you expect aftershocks for two months after,” he said.

Ecuador’s 110,000-barrel-per-day Esmeraldas refinery was working at 77 percent capacity after some operations were halted due to the first quake on Wednesday, the government said before the second tremor.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Alexandra Ulmer and James Dalgleish)

9 dead, in Houston Flood; more rain coming

Flood waters cover the area of FM 1463 at IH-10 in Fort Bend County

HOUSTON (Reuters) – At least nine people have died and some 1,150 homes have been damaged in flooding triggered by torrential downpours in the Houston area this week, officials said on Wednesday, as forecasts called for more rain.

Eight of those killed were found in vehicles that had been in flooded areas, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences and a local sheriff said, adding that medical examiners were working to confirm the causes of death.

The National Weather Service said more rain is on tap for the city, the country’s fourth largest, after a record-setting drenching that dumped as much as 18 inches (45 cm) on some parts of the Houston area on Monday.

The weather service has issued a flood watch from central Texas through Houston and into large parts of Louisiana.

There have been more than 1,200 water rescues during the recent flooding, with emergency crews shuttling people by boat to dry ground and picking up motorists whose cars were caught in rushing waters.

The Houston Independent School District, the country’s seventh-largest school district, said it would reopen on Wednesday after the flooding caused hundreds of schools to close earlier this week.

Heavy storms can overwhelm the drainage channels that move water from Houston back to the Gulf of Mexico, particularly if the ground is already saturated.

The city faced similar widespread flooding during a storm last May and Tropical Storm Allison’s torrent in 2001.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, the Houston bureau and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Paul Simao)