Tag Archives: Earthquake

Earthquake of 5.3 magnitude shakes southwest Turkey’s Bodrum: USGS

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) – An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.3 shook southwestern Turkey near the Aegean coastal town of Bodrum on Tuesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

It was not immediately clear whether anyone was injured. The quake struck some 15 kilometers (about 9 miles) southeast of Bodrum, the USGS said.

Bodrum is a popular resort for both Turks and foreigners on holidays during the summer months.

“We shook throughout the night, again very heavily this morning,” one witness told Reuters via telephone. “I put on my shoes and went into another room and it was shaking the entire time, it lasted a long time.”

The earthquake is the latest to rock the Aegean region this summer. Last month, a powerful quake killed two people on the Greek holiday island of Kos, sending tourists fleeing into the streets and causing disruption in Bodrum as well.

In June, a powerful 6.3 magnitude quake struck Turkey’s western coast and the Greek island of Lesbos, killing one person and rattling buildings from the Turkish province of Izmir to the Greek capital of Athens.

(Reporting by David Dolan and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Dominic Evans and Catherine Evans)

Moderate earthquake shakes central Oklahoma

(Reuters) – An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.2 struck in central Oklahoma on Wednesday night, the United States Geological Survey (USGS)said.

The quake around 10 p.m. local time was centered 20 miles (30 km) north of Oklahoma City, just outside of Edmond, the USGS reported on its website.

Power outages were reported in Edmond, city officials said on Twitter. About 1.3 million people live in the area hit by the quake.

“I was laying in my bed trying to relax and then bam…things were falling off my walls, stuff was falling out of my closet etc.,” said Jonna Clayton, a Oklahoma State University student, on Twitter.

The earthquake followed four other quakes with magnitudes from 3.0 to 3.5 in the area since Tuesday.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Michael Perry and Kim Coghill)

Up to 6.6 magnitude quake off Greece and Turkey kills two

quake damage

By Vassilis Triandafyllou and Tuvan Gumrukcu

KOS, Greece/ANKARA (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake killed two people on the Greek holiday island of Kos in the early hours of Friday, sending tourists fleeing into the streets, and causing disruption in the nearby Turkish tourist hub of Bodrum.

A Turkish and a Swedish tourist, aged 39 and 22 years, died when the roof of a popular bar collapsed, Greek police said. Kos’s port was put out of action and, across the strait, a small tsunami damaged vehicles parked near Bodrum’s shore.

On Kos, around 115 people were injured, including tourists of various nationalities — 12 of them seriously. More than 350 people visited hospitals in Turkey, though most had only light injuries.

The quake struck at 1:31 a.m. (2231 GMT), and many of Kos’s tourists spent the rest of the night in the open as a precaution, hotel owners said.

“All of a sudden it felt like a train was going right through the room,” said Vernon Hausman, a German holidaying on Kos.

“I told my son: ‘Looks like an earthquake, so let’s get the hell out of here.'”

Greek authorities said the 12 people seriously injured on Kos included tourists from Turkey, Sweden and Norway; four were transferred to Crete and three to Athens.

One person was in a critical condition, while a Swedish tourist lost a leg, the director of the hospital in Crete told Greek Skai TV.

“LUCKY ESCAPE”

Turkish and Greek authorities put the magnitude at 6.3 and 6.6 respectively and reported several aftershocks, with one estimated at 5.1. The U.S. Geological Survey located the epicenter of the main quake in the Aegean Sea, 10 km (6 miles) SSE of Bodrum and about 16 km ENE of Kos’s main port.

Hotel owners in Bodrum told Turkish broadcasters that some tourists were checking out.

“It was a lucky escape and it could have been much worse,” said Issa Kamara, a 38-year old personal trainer at the Maca Kizi hotel in Bodrum’s smart Turkbuku area.

Constantina Svynou, head of the hoteliers’ association in Kos, told Greek state television that many visitors had spent the night outside their hotels.

“There are about 200,000 tourists on the island, we are at the peak season. Our first reaction was to calm the tourists, following basic rules and evacuating hotel buildings,” Svynou said, adding that there had been no injuries at hotels.

Reuters video footage showed residents and tourists walking along the streets of Kos’s main town among collapsed walls and debris. Long, wide cracks appeared in the asphalt on the quayside, which is near a tourist strip of cafes and bars.

“It was terrible … our bed was shaking from the left to the right,” said Jara, a 26-year-old Dutch tourist. “Everything was going crazy.”

Kos’s airport remained operational and Greek Deputy Shipping Minister Nektarios Santorinios flew there. But he said the main port was out of action.

“Passengers on ferries have been rerouted to the islands of Nisyros and Kalymnos,” he told Greek SKAI TV.

TIDAL WAVE

Police said most of the damage in Kos had been to older buildings.

A seismologist told Greek TV that there had been a tidal wave about 70 cm (28 inches) high.

Turkey’s emergency authorities warned against aftershocks, but said there had been no casualties or major damage there. Some power cuts were reported, and a minaret in the town of Islamkoy was said to have collapsed.

The broadcaster CNN Turk said that, in Bodrum, 60 vehicles had been dragged along by the water. It also showed boats listing in a harbor. Several store owners told the broadcaster NTV they had suffered flood damage.

Turkey said it would evacuate around 200 of its citizens from Greece by boat.

President Tayyip Erdogan said the fact that no lives had been lost in Turkey was a sign that “the measures we took have been effective”.

Turkey’s location between the Arabian tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate renders it prone to earthquakes.

In October 2011, more than 600 people died in the eastern province of Van following a 7.2-magnitude quake and powerful aftershocks. In 1999, two massive earthquakes killed about 20,000 people in Turkey’s densely populated northwest.

The same year, a 5.9 magnitude quake killed 143 people in Greece.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara, Renee Maltezou, Michele Kambas and George Georgiopoulos in Athens, and Sandra Maler in Washington; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Magnitude 7.8 quake hits off Russia’s Kamchatka: USGS

(Reuters) – A powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.8 off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula triggered a tsunami warning but the threat has now passed, the U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Pacific Tsunami Center said.

The quake struck at 11:34 a.m. on Tuesday (2334 GMT on Monday) some 125 miles (200 km) from the city of Nikolskoye on Bering island off the Kamchatka Peninsula. The epicenter was west of Attu, the westernmost and largest island in the Near Islands group of Alaska’s remote Aleutian Islands.

The earthquake was very shallow, only 6 miles (10 km) below the seabed, which would have amplified its effect, but it was far from any mainland and there were no immediate reports of any casualties or damage.

The Kamchatka branch of Russia’s emergency situations ministry had warned that waves up to 50 cm (1-2/2 feet) high could reach Nikolskoye.

The U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had warned earlier that “hazardous tsunami waves were possible for coasts within 300 km (186 miles) of the earthquake epicenter.” But it later said that based on all available data the tsunami threat from this earthquake had passed.

The quake was initially reported as a magnitude 7.7 before being revised down to 7.4 and finally upgraded to 7.8, a major quake normally capable of causing widespread and heavy damage when striking on or near land.

The quake was followed by numerous aftershocks, including several above magnitude 5.0.

(Reporting by Sandra Maler; Additional reporting by Alex Winning in Moscow; Editing by Peter Cooney and Diane Craft)

One dead as strong earthquake hits Philippines

MANILA (Reuters) – A strong earthquake struck the central Philippines on Thursday killing at least one person and damaging several houses and some infrastructure, officials said.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) said aftershocks were expected but ruled out any tsunami following the earthquake of magnitude 6.5 that rocked the towns of Jaro and Kananga in Leyte province.

Congresswoman Lucy Torres-Gomez from the province said one person had been confirmed killed and Kananga had been “badly hit”.

“There were cracks on the roads and in some areas landslides have been reported,” she told ANC News Channel, adding that a building also collapsed.

“The aftershocks are still quite strong.”

The U.S. Geological Survey said earlier the quake had a magnitude of 6.9 and struck southwest of Tacloban City, one of the areas hardest hit by a typhoon in 2013.

Tacloban’s mayor, Cristina Romualdez, said she received no reports of casualty or damage in her area.

(Reporting by Enrico dela Cruz; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Magnitude-5.8 earthquake strikes in western Montana: USGS

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – A magnitude-5.8 earthquake hit western Montana early on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported, and people felt the tremor hundreds of miles away.

The earthquake struck five miles (9 km) southeast of Lincoln, Montana, at about 12:30 a.m. local time, the USGS said on its website.

“New experience: woken up by an earthquake. No damage just spooky as heck!” Cole Fawcett tweeted in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, about 285 miles (460 km) north of Lincoln.

Residents in the U.S. west flooded Twitter early on Thursday with similar experiences.

“My mom woke up and yelled at me and my dad that there was a bear shaking our trailer,” Brad Wynder said on Twitter.

No significant damage or injuries had been reported about an hour after the quake.

More than 10,000 reports from those who felt shaking were collected on the USGS website.

Several aftershocks with magnitudes of more than 4 were reported by the USGS. The Pacific Tsunami Warning center earlier reported the quake with a magnitude of 6.0.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

Aegean quake shakes buildings in Greece and Turkey, one dead

A damaged house is seen at the village of Vrissa on the Greek island of Lesbos, Greece, after a strong earthquake shook the eastern Aegean

ISTANBUL/ATHENS (Reuters) – A powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the western coast of Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos on Monday, killing one woman and rattling buildings from the Aegean Turkish province of Izmir to the Greek capital Athens.

The epicenter of the quake was about 84 km (52 miles) northwest of the Turkish coastal city of Izmir and 15 km south of Lesbos, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said on its website. The National Observatory of Athens put it slightly lower at 6.1.

Extensive damage was reported at a village on Lesbos, which was at the forefront of a migration crisis two years ago when hundreds of thousands of war refugees landed there seeking a gateway into Europe.

TV footage showed collapsed buildings and debris blocking narrow streets at Vrisa, a community of around 600 people to the south of the island.

“Tens of buildings have collapsed and roads are blocked off,” said Marios Apostolides, the divisional commander of the fire brigade.

Rescue team members search for victims at a collapsed building in the village of Vrissa on the Greek island of Lesbos, Greece, after a strong earthquake shook the eastern Aegean,

Rescue team members search for victims at a collapsed building in the village of Vrissa on the Greek island of Lesbos, Greece, after a strong earthquake shook the eastern Aegean, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Giorgos Moutafis

A woman, believed to be about 60, was crushed by the roof of her home and died, the island’s mayor said. Local officials said at least 10 people were injured.

The quake was felt as far away as the Greek capital of Athens, some 367 km (228 miles) southwest of the island.

Major geological fault lines cross the region and small earthquakes are common, though anything higher than 5.5 is rare. Anything exceeding that is capable of causing extensive damage.

“The trembling was really bad. Everything in my clinic started shaking wildly, we all ran outside with the patients,” said Didem Eris, a 50-year-old dentist in Izmir’s Karsiyaka district. “We are very used to earthquakes as people of Izmir but this one was different. I thought to myself that this time we were going to die.”

Social media users who said they were in western Turkey reported a strong and sustained tremor.

“We will be seeing the aftershocks of this in the coming hours, days and weeks,” said Haluk Ozener, head of Turkey’s Kandilli Observatory, adding that the aftershocks could have magnitudes of up to 5.5.

More than 600 people died in October 2011 in Turkey’s eastern province of Van after a quake of 7.2 magnitude and powerful aftershocks. In 1999, two massive earthquakes killed about 20,000 people in the densely populated northwest of the country.

(Reporting by Turkey and Athens newsrooms; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

5.3-magnitude quake shakes big island of Hawaii: USGS

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A 5.3-magnitude earthquake shook the Big Island of Hawaii on Thursday, near the Kilauea Volcano, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or substantial damage from the quake and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said no tsunami was expected to result.

According to the USGS, the temblor rattled the Big Island at 7:01 a.m. local time (1601 GMT) at a depth of 8 kilometers (4.9 miles).

“As in all earthquakes, be aware of the possibility of aftershocks,” Hawaii County Civil Defense said in an alert.

“If the earthquake was strongly felt in your area, precautionary checks should be made for any damages, especially to utility connections of gas, water and power,” the agency said.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

U.S. extends ‘temporary protected status’ to Haitians until January

FILE PHOTO: A Flag from Haiti is pictured in a local store as a woman walks under rain at the neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York, U.S. May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will allow more than 50,000 victims of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake to remain in the United States with work authorizations until January 2018, department officials told reporters on Monday.

The Obama administration first granted protections to Haitians who arrived in the United States within a year of the devastating earthquake and the group’s status has since been extended.

Three DHS officials, who agreed to speak to reporters only on the condition of anonymity, said Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has assessed the situation in Haiti and believes conditions there are improving but still necessitate protected status for Haitians living in the United States.

The officials said, however, that Haitians in the United States under what is known as temporary protected status should begin acquiring travel documents to return to Haiti, noting that DHS has not committed to extending protections past January.

U.S. law allows DHS to grant temporary protected status to citizens of countries ravaged by violence, disease and natural disasters.

Other countries designated for temporary protected status include Sudan, Somalia, Syria, El Salvador, Nepal and Yemen.

The Department of Homeland Security will issue a notice to the Federal Register to extend temporary protected status within the coming days. After a 60-day period, Haitians under the status will be given new work authorizations valid until January.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum and Dan Grebler)

Ancient quakes may point to sinking risk for part of California coast

The city of Long Beach is seen at dusk, California, U.S., September 8, 201

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The Big One may be overdue to hit California but scientists near Los Angeles have found a new risk for the area during a major earthquake: abrupt sinking of land, potentially below sea level.

The last known major quake on the San Andreas fault occurred in 1857, but three quakes over the last 2,000 years on nearby faults made ground just outside Los Angeles city limits sink as much as three feet, according to a study published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports.

Seismologists estimate the 800 mile-long San Andreas, which runs most of the length of the state, should see a large quake roughly every 150 years.

Scientists from California State University Fullerton and the United States Geological Survey found evidence the older quakes caused part of the coastline south of Long Beach to drop by one-and-a-half to three feet.

Today that could result in the area ending up at or below sea level, said Cal State Fullerton professor Matt Kirby, who worked with the paper’s lead author, graduate student Robert Leeper.

“It’s something that would happen relatively instantaneously,” Kirby said. “Probably today if it happened, you would see seawater rushing in.”

The study was limited to a roughly two-square-mile area inside the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, near the Newport-Inglewood and Rose Canyon faults. Kirby acknowledged that the exact frequency of events on the faults is unclear, as is the risk that another quake will occur in the near future.

The smallest of the historic earthquakes was likely more intense than the strongest on record in the area, the magnitude 6.3 Long Beach earthquake of 1933, which killed 120 people and caused the inflation-adjusted equivalent of nearly a billion dollars in damage.

Today, the survey site is sandwiched by the cities of Huntington Beach and Long Beach, home to over 600,000 people, while nearby Los Angeles County has a population of 10 million.

Seismologist John Vidale, head of the University of Washington-based Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, said after reviewing the study he was skeptical such powerful quakes could occur very frequently in the area.

Kirby noted that the team could only collect soil core samples within the relatively undisturbed refuge, and that taking deeper samples would shed light on the seismic record even further back, potentially giving scientists more examples of similar quakes to work from.

(The story was refiled to correct the second paragraph to clarify timing of last known major quake on the San Andreas fault)

(Reporting by Tom James; Editing by Patrick Enright and James Dalgleish)