Nocere – Earth Disasters

A major earthquake which had a magnitude of 7.6, according to the U.S Geological Survey had struck the Indonesia and killed at least 21 people. Reporter show that there were at least 75 people critically wounded. It struck at around 5pm local time about 53km from Padang, the capital city of West Sumatra.

This high magnitude earthquake caused the main power and phone outages, worsen the official and aid organization to evaluate the damage. Thousands citizens may be trapped in the collapsed building; the death toll were expect to be increased. Many families had been forced to spend their night outdoors, in pitch black with the risk of possibility of aftershocks.

The shaking was felt in the nearby cities such as Medan and Gengkulu, where people frightened and ran outside in search of higher ground, worrying a tsunami. Citizen of the neighboring country, Malaysia and Singapore claimed they were also feeling the aftershocks.

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The 8.3-magnitude earthquake struck at 1748GMT on 29 September, creating a strong tsunami with wave as high as 4.5m has killed more than 100 people in several island in the South Pacific. Citizens of Samoa and American Samoa were evacuated to higher ground as whole village were demolished.

The prime minister of Samoa, Tuila’epe Sailele Malielegaoi was shocked with the disaster. The local hospitals were able to cope with the wounded and the authority was considering help offers from New Zealand and Australia.

The American Samoa spokesperson said the wave had struck too quickly before evacuation can be made. The tsunami was believed happened within 5 minutes after the quake. He also mentioned that the tsunami actually wiped out all the low-lying areas in the Samoan islands.

Officials at the Samoa Meteorology Division stated that the death was happening when the second wave after they went to collect the fish being washed up from the first wave. The number of casualties was expected to increase and things will be getting worst in the next 12 hours.

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Flood hits the capital of Philippine, Manila and official reported at least 50 people death and thousands more evacuated. This is believe to be the worst flooding in Manila for over 20 years, with Tropical Storm Ketsana, also known as Ondoy, bringing the equivalent of a whole month’s rain fell in 6 hours.

Television pictures showed water flowing down the roads like rivers, with height at about adult’s chest and rising. Philippines President Gloria Arroyo is calling his citizen through broadcasting to stay calm, and tag on the order from the local officials and civil defense authorities.

Major road to the Manila is impassable with slowed down vehicles and some ferry services were stopped. Flight service were canceled and thousands passenger were lock in the airport. Ketsana, with winds of up to 100km/h, is still over Manila, and is expected to move over to the South China Sea on Sunday or Monday.

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2 car suicide bombing had hit in north-western of Pakistan. It is reported at least a total number of 16 death in these 2 incidents.

The bombing happened in the city of Pashawar is destructive enough; citizen reported they can see the smoke rising from the scene and can hear the explosion across the city. Police said that this suicide car bomb happened in the car park of a bank in a commercial area resulting ten people reported to be death and over 70 people had been harmed, some critically. Official is expecting the death toll could increase.

Earlier, a suicide car bomb had been set up outside the police station in the town of Bann. Several building included the police station were collapsed after the blast. There is number of citizen caught trapped in the bubble. Official announced there is total of 6 people were killed in the incident.

The attacks believe to be launched by the Taliban after a period of relative quiet from the insurgents suffered a series of setbacks. The former leader of the Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud was killed in the event of US missile strike and follows by the arrest of Muslim Khan, one of the highest ranking Taliban officials in the country and 4 senior militants. The correspondent believe the Taliban had been reasserting and there will be more suicide bombing in the north-west region of Pakistan.

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Red sand storm had hit the major city of Australia’s east coast, Sydney and Brisbane. Visibility was so bad that airplane and ferry service needed to be diverted and disrupted. It said the sand storm is common happened in the red center of Australia, but somehow it is special this time with large wind blowing from the populated city outback.

Interview had been carried out with Sydney resident, Andrew Hawkins expressing that the dust storm feels like Armageddon is upon them. Some of others commented that they are like ‘living’ on Mars.

The air pollution level reached the sky high 15,500 micrograms of particles per cubic meter since records began in the 70. Warning had been given to the elderly, children, pregnant women and people with heart and lung diseases to stay in house to avoid the dust.

It had been a difficult 24 hours for the Australian which being hit by the said red sand storm, earthquake, hail storms and bushfires. Precaution had been taken that no open fires allowed in the hot and dry weather. There is 2 minor earthquakes reported in Victoria state as well.

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10 minutes powerful earthquakes rattled Japan and India yesterday. The unrelated quakes struck in the early morning, and caused the shut down of bullet trains services in the affected Japan region and provoking a landslide with the nation already braced for more damage from Typhoon Etau.

At least 110 people were injured, mostly by falling objects, with two in serious condition, said a Shizuoka prefecture official. A nuclear power plant went into automatic shut down but no incidents were reported.

In an address on Japanese public broadcaster NHK, Shizuoka governor Huita Kawakatsu urged the public to “remain level-headed and gather correct information we provide through TV programmes.”

Panic-stricken islanders fled their homes, fearing a repeat of the enormous Asian tsunami that devastated the Andamans in 2004 and killed around 220,000 people in the region as whole. But a tsunami alert issued for India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh was later cancelled by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre of the US National Weather Service. “Sea level readings indicate that a significant tsunami was not generated,” it said.

The police control centre in Port Blair, the main town of the Andamans, said there were no immediate reports of any major damage or casualties.

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Thousands of residents have forced to escape from their homes at a western Canadian community because of slow progress in rescue work of wildfires on Sunday. The dry and wind condition also help to spread the fires and at last broke out on Saturday in the hills along Okanagan Lake, west of the city of Kelowna, British Columbia, where a lot of violations of the housing around the forest in recent years.

“The winds will increase fire activity, said:” Alice Riedlinger, spokesman for the British Columbia Forest Service, there is not estimated of when the fire can be controlled.

However, there were no injuries or deaths have been reported, but at least three homes have been destroyed, and possibly more.  Around 17,000 people were advised either to leave their homes or to leave the moment of notification, if the request for emergency services officials.

The Glenrosa fire, this is the first time the outbreak has increased to 988 acres, and the Rose Valley dam fire, break a few kilometers (miles) north has increased to 370.5 acres.   Glenrosa fire about 40 percent contained, but the topography of the Rose Valley Canyon fire hampered the efforts of the ground to build a fire official said the National Guard.

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One person was killed at an earthquake in China’s southwestern Yunnan province as stated by the provincial relief official. According to the state media, more than 300 people were injured and 10,000 houses were toppled.

This magnitude-6 earthquake started at 7:19pm local time yesterday in Guantun Township which is about 200 kilometer (124 miles) away from the provincial city of Kunming. Tents, medicines and food have been distributed to those who homes were destroyed in this earthquake.

The earthquake has damaged 30,000 buildings across six countries in Chuxiong and 30 people were seriously injured and being treated in the hospital. 3 percents of the 216,000 buildings that collapsed in the first two days after the Sichuan quake were school. As stated by the US Geological Survey, it is a magnitude 5.7 quake with a depth of 10 kilometers.

According to Xinhua, Yunnan officials is planning to send 4,500 tents, 3,000 quilts and other relief items to the quake zone. The report also stated that team from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the China Earthquake Administration are heading to the scene.

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