JAKARTA : A 6.2-magnitude quake struck off Indonesia's Sulawesi island on Tuesday but there were no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued, the country's geophysics agency said.
The quake struck at 8:38 pm (1138 GMT) at sea 195 kilometres (120 miles) southeast of Melonguane in North Sulawesi province at a depth of 18 kilometres, the agency said in an SMS alert.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Next apocalypse? Mayan year 2012 stirs doomsayers
By MARK STEVENSON,Associated Press Writer - Sunday, October 11
MEXICO CITY ? Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.
Or is it?
Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."
It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.
At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.
"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."
Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.
A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.
But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"
It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades _ the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.
One of them is Monument Six.
Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.
It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation.
However _ shades of Indiana Jones _ erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.
Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will descend from the sky."
Spooky, perhaps, but Bernal notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 _ including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.
And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012.
"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."
The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy
Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.
"It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they're just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six."
Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."
If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.
But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.
That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets.
Another spooky coincidence?
"The question I would ask these guys is, so what?" says Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs the "Bad Astronomy" blog. He says the alignment doesn't fall precisely in 2012, and distant stars exert no force that could harm Earth.
"They're really super-duper trying to find anything astronomical they can to fit that date of 2012," Plait said.
But author John Major Jenkins says his two-decade study of Mayan ruins indicate the Maya were aware of the alignment and attached great importance to it.
"If we want to honor and respect how the Maya think about this, then we would say that the Maya viewed 2012, as all cycle endings, as a time of transformation and renewal," said Jenkins.
As the Internet gained popularity in the 1990s, so did word of the "fateful" date, and some began worrying about 2012 disasters the Mayas never dreamed of.
Author Lawrence Joseph says a peak in explosive storms on the surface of the sun could knock out North America's power grid for years, triggering food shortages, water scarcity _ a collapse of civilization. Solar peaks occur about every 11 years, but Joseph says there's evidence the 2012 peak could be "a lulu."
While pressing governments to install protection for power grids, Joseph counsels readers not to "use 2012 as an excuse to not live in a healthy, responsible fashion. I mean, don't let the credit cards go up."
Another History Channel program titled "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012: End of Days" says a galactic alignment or magnetic disturbances could somehow trigger a "pole shift."
"The entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, perhaps hours, changing the position of the north and south poles, causing worldwide disaster," a narrator proclaims. "Earthquakes would rock every continent, massive tsunamis would inundate coastal cities. It would be the ultimate planetary catastrophe."
The idea apparently originates with a 19th century Frenchman, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a priest-turned-archaeologist who got it from his study of ancient Mayan and Aztec texts.
Scientists say that, at best, the poles might change location by one degree over a million years, with no sign that it would start in 2012.
While long discredited, Brasseur de Bourbourg proves one thing: Westerners have been trying for more than a century to pin doomsday scenarios on the Maya. And while fascinated by ancient lore, advocates seldom examine more recent experiences with apocalypse predictions.
"No one who's writing in now seems to remember that the last time we thought the world was going to end, it didn't," says Martin, the astronomy webmaster. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of memory that things were fine the last time around."
MEXICO CITY ? Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.
Or is it?
Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."
It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.
At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.
"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."
Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.
A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.
But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"
It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades _ the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.
One of them is Monument Six.
Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.
It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation.
However _ shades of Indiana Jones _ erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.
Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will descend from the sky."
Spooky, perhaps, but Bernal notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 _ including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.
And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012.
"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."
The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy
Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.
"It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they're just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six."
Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."
If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.
But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.
That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets.
Another spooky coincidence?
"The question I would ask these guys is, so what?" says Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs the "Bad Astronomy" blog. He says the alignment doesn't fall precisely in 2012, and distant stars exert no force that could harm Earth.
"They're really super-duper trying to find anything astronomical they can to fit that date of 2012," Plait said.
But author John Major Jenkins says his two-decade study of Mayan ruins indicate the Maya were aware of the alignment and attached great importance to it.
"If we want to honor and respect how the Maya think about this, then we would say that the Maya viewed 2012, as all cycle endings, as a time of transformation and renewal," said Jenkins.
As the Internet gained popularity in the 1990s, so did word of the "fateful" date, and some began worrying about 2012 disasters the Mayas never dreamed of.
Author Lawrence Joseph says a peak in explosive storms on the surface of the sun could knock out North America's power grid for years, triggering food shortages, water scarcity _ a collapse of civilization. Solar peaks occur about every 11 years, but Joseph says there's evidence the 2012 peak could be "a lulu."
While pressing governments to install protection for power grids, Joseph counsels readers not to "use 2012 as an excuse to not live in a healthy, responsible fashion. I mean, don't let the credit cards go up."
Another History Channel program titled "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012: End of Days" says a galactic alignment or magnetic disturbances could somehow trigger a "pole shift."
"The entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, perhaps hours, changing the position of the north and south poles, causing worldwide disaster," a narrator proclaims. "Earthquakes would rock every continent, massive tsunamis would inundate coastal cities. It would be the ultimate planetary catastrophe."
The idea apparently originates with a 19th century Frenchman, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a priest-turned-archaeologist who got it from his study of ancient Mayan and Aztec texts.
Scientists say that, at best, the poles might change location by one degree over a million years, with no sign that it would start in 2012.
While long discredited, Brasseur de Bourbourg proves one thing: Westerners have been trying for more than a century to pin doomsday scenarios on the Maya. And while fascinated by ancient lore, advocates seldom examine more recent experiences with apocalypse predictions.
"No one who's writing in now seems to remember that the last time we thought the world was going to end, it didn't," says Martin, the astronomy webmaster. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of memory that things were fine the last time around."
Monday, October 12, 2009
Earthquake measuring 6.0 hits Indian Ocean
A strong earthquake measuring 6.0 hit a remote unpopulated area of the Indian Ocean early Monday.So far there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage reported.
Occurred at 0315 GMT and was located 1,014 kilometers (630 miles) east northeast of Port Louis, Mauritius.
Occurred at 0315 GMT and was located 1,014 kilometers (630 miles) east northeast of Port Louis, Mauritius.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
World Mental Health Day
I think the all the world disaster and trouble start from an ulhealthy mental of mankind. So happy Mental Health day.
World Mental Health Day
10 October 2009
World Mental Health Day on 10 October raises public awareness about mental health issues. The Day promotes more open discussion of illnesses, and investments in prevention and treatment services. WHO statistics for 2002 show that 154 million people globally suffer from depression, only one form of mental illness.
Mental, neurological and behavioural disorders are common in all countries around the world, causing immense suffering and staggering economic and social costs. People with disorders are often subjected to social isolation, poor quality of life and higher death rates.
World Mental Health Day
10 October 2009
World Mental Health Day on 10 October raises public awareness about mental health issues. The Day promotes more open discussion of illnesses, and investments in prevention and treatment services. WHO statistics for 2002 show that 154 million people globally suffer from depression, only one form of mental illness.
Mental, neurological and behavioural disorders are common in all countries around the world, causing immense suffering and staggering economic and social costs. People with disorders are often subjected to social isolation, poor quality of life and higher death rates.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
NASA Moon Bombing: Scientific Exploration or Act of War?
Some Believe the United States Has an Ulterior Motive in LCROSS Mission to Bomb the Moon.
Is NASA bombing the moon? The act sounds like something out of a Robert Heinlein novel or some science fiction movie about wayward colonies, but it is true that United States of AmericaNASA has launched a mission (LCROSS) that will send a missile that will literally crash ("bomb") into the southern surface of the moon in an attempt to find ice. The NASA moon bombing will take place inside a crater on the moon's southern pole, and the impact is expected to produce such a cloud of debris that scientists back on Earth can ascertain whether or not water actually exists in some form on the moon.
The LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) Mission is not an act of war or vandalism, as some have claimed. According to Scientific American, the NASA moon bombing is also part of a dual scientific mission. A centaur rocket (which will be the object bombing the moon) and a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will both be launched from an Atlas V rocket, which will get the mission to Earth orbit.
The LCROSS spacecraft will first orbit the Earth a few times before its target is pinpointed. As it heads toward the moon, it will be shepherded by smaller craft which will monitor and capture data about the mission, including data from the debris cloud after impact. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will detach long before impact and begin its separate mission of orbiting the lunar surface in search of possible lunar landing sites, places for possible colonization, and materials that could possibly sustain a moon colony.
The impact of the LCROSS missile is scheduled to occur at approximately 7:31 a.m. October 9. The missile is designed to hit the moon's surface at twice the speed of a bullet. It is expected to have an impact equivalent to 1.5 tons of TNT. The debris cloud is expected to be visible from Earth with the aid of a telescope.
The intent of the NASA moon bombing is to find proof of the hypothesis offered by British scientists last year that, since the southern pole of the moon has craters with shadows that have never seen sunlight, ice
United States of America may be trapped in the crater shadows. This backed up findings of a NASA lunar probe called Lunar Prospector in 1998 that found evidence that the moon's soil held water.
Sounds peaceful enough, but there are those who believe that the NASA moon bombing is an act of aggression against an extraterrestrial civilization and, as an act of overt aggression, is a direct violation of a United Nations treaty, of which the United States is a signatory.
According to an article reaching wide circulation on the world wide web (this particular incarnation posted by Norwegian Viking on Free Republic), the United Nations Outer Space Treaty maintains that: "The moon and other celestial bodies will be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies shall be forbidden." Using that as a base and stating that astronauts, cosmonauts, scientists and the NSA (National Security Agency) have confirmed that extraterrestrials do exist on the moon, the article makes its case that to "bomb" the moon would be a violation of the U. N. Treaty and an act of violence against possible extraterrestrial civilizations. It also suggests that the bombing of the moon may be an attempt for the U. S. to gain sovereignty over the moon, which is also a violation of the U. N. Treaty. The article also implores those in agreement to contact the Director of NASA to stop the NASA moon bombing.
Could any part of the aforementioned article hold any truth? Besides the well-documented statements of many astronauts that they had spied UFOs and other anomalies in space and the fact that the U. N. Outer Space Treaty exists, the extrapolation that all the gathered statements and "evidence" is proof of an extraterrestrial presence on the moon (or anywhere else) is a monstrous stretch. To suggest that the United States, through NASA, is attempting to establish sovereignty by crashing a missile (no explosives involved) into the surface of the moon, is imaginative but misguided. As the Associated Press pointed out, Friday's impact will be the 20th such crash into the moon's surface (and nearly all of them on purpose) in 50 years.
That the United States and others may wish to someday place colonies on the moon is a foregone conclusion. Proving that ice exists in the crater shadows could go a long way in providing a much-needed and readily available resource for the colonization of Earth's nearest neighbor.
To believe that various military agencies aren't watching with interest the NASA moon bombing would be the height of naivete. There is no doubt military advantage to be had by establishing bases on the moon, not to mention productive information to be gained by watching something impact United States of America the moon's surface. But to combine reports of UFO sightings, a U. N. Space Treaty, and the LCROSS mission as a complicated plan to establish lunar sovereignty for the United States or to aggressively attack an extraterrestrial civilization really does sound like the plot of a Robert Heinlein novel.
The LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) Mission is not an act of war or vandalism, as some have claimed. According to Scientific American, the NASA moon bombing is also part of a dual scientific mission. A centaur rocket (which will be the object bombing the moon) and a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will both be launched from an Atlas V rocket, which will get the mission to Earth orbit.
The LCROSS spacecraft will first orbit the Earth a few times before its target is pinpointed. As it heads toward the moon, it will be shepherded by smaller craft which will monitor and capture data about the mission, including data from the debris cloud after impact. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will detach long before impact and begin its separate mission of orbiting the lunar surface in search of possible lunar landing sites, places for possible colonization, and materials that could possibly sustain a moon colony.
The impact of the LCROSS missile is scheduled to occur at approximately 7:31 a.m. October 9. The missile is designed to hit the moon's surface at twice the speed of a bullet. It is expected to have an impact equivalent to 1.5 tons of TNT. The debris cloud is expected to be visible from Earth with the aid of a telescope.
The intent of the NASA moon bombing is to find proof of the hypothesis offered by British scientists last year that, since the southern pole of the moon has craters with shadows that have never seen sunlight, ice
United States of America may be trapped in the crater shadows. This backed up findings of a NASA lunar probe called Lunar Prospector in 1998 that found evidence that the moon's soil held water.
Sounds peaceful enough, but there are those who believe that the NASA moon bombing is an act of aggression against an extraterrestrial civilization and, as an act of overt aggression, is a direct violation of a United Nations treaty, of which the United States is a signatory.
According to an article reaching wide circulation on the world wide web (this particular incarnation posted by Norwegian Viking on Free Republic), the United Nations Outer Space Treaty maintains that: "The moon and other celestial bodies will be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies shall be forbidden." Using that as a base and stating that astronauts, cosmonauts, scientists and the NSA (National Security Agency) have confirmed that extraterrestrials do exist on the moon, the article makes its case that to "bomb" the moon would be a violation of the U. N. Treaty and an act of violence against possible extraterrestrial civilizations. It also suggests that the bombing of the moon may be an attempt for the U. S. to gain sovereignty over the moon, which is also a violation of the U. N. Treaty. The article also implores those in agreement to contact the Director of NASA to stop the NASA moon bombing.
Could any part of the aforementioned article hold any truth? Besides the well-documented statements of many astronauts that they had spied UFOs and other anomalies in space and the fact that the U. N. Outer Space Treaty exists, the extrapolation that all the gathered statements and "evidence" is proof of an extraterrestrial presence on the moon (or anywhere else) is a monstrous stretch. To suggest that the United States, through NASA, is attempting to establish sovereignty by crashing a missile (no explosives involved) into the surface of the moon, is imaginative but misguided. As the Associated Press pointed out, Friday's impact will be the 20th such crash into the moon's surface (and nearly all of them on purpose) in 50 years.
That the United States and others may wish to someday place colonies on the moon is a foregone conclusion. Proving that ice exists in the crater shadows could go a long way in providing a much-needed and readily available resource for the colonization of Earth's nearest neighbor.
To believe that various military agencies aren't watching with interest the NASA moon bombing would be the height of naivete. There is no doubt military advantage to be had by establishing bases on the moon, not to mention productive information to be gained by watching something impact United States of America the moon's surface. But to combine reports of UFO sightings, a U. N. Space Treaty, and the LCROSS mission as a complicated plan to establish lunar sovereignty for the United States or to aggressively attack an extraterrestrial civilization really does sound like the plot of a Robert Heinlein novel.
******
Sources:
Associated Press
FreeRepublic.com
ScientificAmerican.com
Typhoon Melor hits Japan as new earthquakes cause panic in the Pacific
East Asia was hit by another powerful storm this morning, when one man was killed and transport and industry were disrupted as a typhoon swept across Japan.
A 54-year old newspaper delivery man died when his motorbike crashed into a fallen tree as Typhoon Melor brought heavy rain and winds as strong as 123mph (198kph). Dozens more were injured and factories, as well as the country’s railways and airports, were temporarily shut down.
On the Pacific island of Vanuatu people fled in panic in response to a tsunami warning issued to 25 countries in the region after three powerful undersea earthquakes struck. The waves did not materialise, and the warning was lifted. A strong earthquake also struck southwest of the Philippines, which is still recovering from its own devastating typhoon last week, although it caused no significant damage.
Typhoons are common in Japan at this time of year, but most of them remain out at sea. Melor caused less damage than many people had feared, compared with Typhoon Tokage, which killed 95 people five years ago.
Across the country, roofs were stripped from houses, and an 18ft-wide section of the stone wall of Hikone Castle, which is 500 years old, collapsed. In and around the central city of Nagoya, a road bridge cracked and cars were submerged in river water. According to Japanese television, 9,000 people were evacuated and at least 40,000 homes lost their electricity supply in central Japan, as did more than 10,000 in the greater Tokyo area.
Toyota announced that it was closing all 12 of its automobile factories for the day, and Suzuki suspended work at six of its plants. All 434 elementary and junior high schools were closed in the city of Osaka. The government meteorological agency warned of the danger of mudslides of earth loosened by the heavy rain.
It has been an unusually destructive storm season in East Asia. Typhoon Ketsana killed hundreds of people in the Philippines and Vietnam, and in August more than 600 people died in Typhoon Morakot. In addition, powerful earthquakes and tsunamis killed 3,000 people on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and 150 in Samoa.
So there was widespread alarm this morning when the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii issued a tsunami warning for the entire southwest Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, after a series of three earthquakes measuring 7.8, 7.7 and 7.3 on the Richter scale struck between Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands beginning at 9.03am local time (10.0pm GMT).
A 54-year old newspaper delivery man died when his motorbike crashed into a fallen tree as Typhoon Melor brought heavy rain and winds as strong as 123mph (198kph). Dozens more were injured and factories, as well as the country’s railways and airports, were temporarily shut down.
On the Pacific island of Vanuatu people fled in panic in response to a tsunami warning issued to 25 countries in the region after three powerful undersea earthquakes struck. The waves did not materialise, and the warning was lifted. A strong earthquake also struck southwest of the Philippines, which is still recovering from its own devastating typhoon last week, although it caused no significant damage.
Typhoons are common in Japan at this time of year, but most of them remain out at sea. Melor caused less damage than many people had feared, compared with Typhoon Tokage, which killed 95 people five years ago.
Across the country, roofs were stripped from houses, and an 18ft-wide section of the stone wall of Hikone Castle, which is 500 years old, collapsed. In and around the central city of Nagoya, a road bridge cracked and cars were submerged in river water. According to Japanese television, 9,000 people were evacuated and at least 40,000 homes lost their electricity supply in central Japan, as did more than 10,000 in the greater Tokyo area.
Toyota announced that it was closing all 12 of its automobile factories for the day, and Suzuki suspended work at six of its plants. All 434 elementary and junior high schools were closed in the city of Osaka. The government meteorological agency warned of the danger of mudslides of earth loosened by the heavy rain.
It has been an unusually destructive storm season in East Asia. Typhoon Ketsana killed hundreds of people in the Philippines and Vietnam, and in August more than 600 people died in Typhoon Morakot. In addition, powerful earthquakes and tsunamis killed 3,000 people on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and 150 in Samoa.
So there was widespread alarm this morning when the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii issued a tsunami warning for the entire southwest Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, after a series of three earthquakes measuring 7.8, 7.7 and 7.3 on the Richter scale struck between Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands beginning at 9.03am local time (10.0pm GMT).
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Earthquake hits Sumatra
A powerful earthquake has struck off the Indonesia island of Sumatra, where more than 100 people died in a quake last June.
The tremor hit at 0228 on Wednesday (1928GMT Tuesday) about 400km (250 miles) west of the capital, Jakarta, according to Australian seisomologicals who monitored the tremor.
They put the strenth of the quake at 7.3 on the Richter scale, but Indonesian officials in Jakarta said it was less powerful - 5.0 on the Richter scale.
"The quake was felt in Bengkulu and Jakarta, but we haven't received any reports of damage or casualties caused by the quake," said Hamdani, an official with the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.
He said the epicentre of the quake was under the ocean, 21 km (13 miles) southwest of Manna town in Bengkulu province.
Local police in Bengkulu city said the quake was felt strongly there, with people running out of their houses.
The tremor hit at 0228 on Wednesday (1928GMT Tuesday) about 400km (250 miles) west of the capital, Jakarta, according to Australian seisomologicals who monitored the tremor.
They put the strenth of the quake at 7.3 on the Richter scale, but Indonesian officials in Jakarta said it was less powerful - 5.0 on the Richter scale.
"The quake was felt in Bengkulu and Jakarta, but we haven't received any reports of damage or casualties caused by the quake," said Hamdani, an official with the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.
He said the epicentre of the quake was under the ocean, 21 km (13 miles) southwest of Manna town in Bengkulu province.
Local police in Bengkulu city said the quake was felt strongly there, with people running out of their houses.
Windows shaken
Hamdani said that the tremor had caused panic in the sparsely populated region, but no damage, and he disputed the Richter reading of 7.3, measured by Australian, Hong Kong and US observers.
"If the magnitude was over 7.0 on the Richter scale ... it should have damaged houses and even demolished them. But our office there said ... all that happened was windows, walls and doors shook," he said.
Earthquakes regularly hit Indonesia. In June last year, the same area was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, which left 103 people dead.
"If the magnitude was over 7.0 on the Richter scale ... it should have damaged houses and even demolished them. But our office there said ... all that happened was windows, walls and doors shook," he said.
Earthquakes regularly hit Indonesia. In June last year, the same area was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, which left 103 people dead.
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