At least 25 people were injured in the quake that hit at a depth of just 8km near the Pakistan border
A magnitude 6.0 earthquake shook eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border leaving nine people dead and many more injured.
The quake struck at 11:47pm on Sunday and was centred 27km northeast of the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, the US Geological Survey said. It was just 8km deep. Shallower quakes tend to cause more damage.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Years of preparation and global coordination ensured communities from Japan to Hawaii were not caught off guard
Good morning. Yesterday one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded hit a sparsely populated region in far east Russia.
It triggered a tsunami that started crossing the ocean at hundreds of miles an hour. What followed was a race against time – early warning systems went into alert mode as waves fanned out towards the coastlines of Japan, Hawaii and the US west coast.
Travel | The head of the UK’s air traffic control company is facing calls to resign after hundreds of flights were delayed when the system went down for about 20 minutes on Wednesday.
Israel-Gaza war | A British-Israeli woman who was held hostage by Hamas for more than 15 months has accused Keir Starmer of “moral failure” after he set the UK on course to recognise a Palestinian state. Emily Damari, 29, who was released in January, said the prime minister was “not standing on the right side of history” and should be ashamed.
UK news | The co-founder of Palestine Action can bring a legal challenge to the home secretary’s decision to ban the direct action group under anti-terrorism laws, a high court judge has ruled.
Environment | Ethnic minorities and people living in the most deprived areas of England are at increased risk of dying due to excess heat, according to new research.
Technology | Five million extra online age checks a day are being carried out in the UK since the Online Safety Act introduced age-gating for pornography sites, according to new data from the Age Verification Providers Association.
Continue reading...Powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake off Russia triggers tsunami alerts across Pacific including for US coast and Japan
A major tsunami is not expected to strike Hawaii, a Pacific monitoring agency has said, after the first waves hit the islands after a powerful magnitude-8.8 earthquake that struck off Russia’s eastern coast.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, operated by the US National Weather Service, said in an update that “based on all available data”, a major tsunami was not expected, although it warned all coasts could remain “a hazard to swimmers and boaters”, including people near the shore.
Continue reading...No major damage has been reported in the Tokara island chain, Japan’s meteorological agency says
More than 900 earthquakes have shaken a remote island chain in southern Japan in the past two weeks, according to the country’s weather agency, leaving residents unable to sleep and fearful of what might come next.
Although no major damage has been reported, the Japan Meteorological Agency has acknowledged that it does not know when the quakes would end.
Continue reading...Meteorologists at television news stations serving Georgia and North Carolina reported feeling the tremors
A 4.1-magnitude earthquake in Tennessee woke up families and rattled homes as far away as Atlanta as it spread tremors across portions of the southern US on Saturday morning. No injuries or major damage were immediately reported.
The website for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake originated shortly after 9am EDT about 12 miles (20km) from Greenback, Tennessee, which is about 30 miles (48km) south of Knoxville.
Continue reading...Likelihood of potentially devastating quake above 8.0 magnitude in next 50 years is 15%, study states
A massive earthquake in the Pacific north-west could rapidly transform areas of the coast from northern California to Washington, causing swaths of land to quickly sink, “dramatically” raising sea level and increasing the flood risk to communities.
That’s according to a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examining the potential impact of the “big one”, a powerful quake along the Cascadia fault that stretches from Canada to California.
Continue reading...Preliminary information indicates the 4.6-magnitude quake occurred at a shallow depth of 10km
Aftershocks are expected from an earthquake that shook residents awake along a stretch of Australia’s east coast.
The quake struck at 2.55am on Wednesday near Singleton in the New South Wales Hunter Valley, about 200km north of Sydney, Geoscience Australia seismologists said.
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Continue reading...The 7.7 magnitude quake on Friday wrought destruction across central areas of the country, including the capital
A devastating earthquake has wrought destruction across central Myanmar, toppling ancient sites, bringing down hospital buildings and collapsing homes.
The 7.7 magnitude quake on Friday was followed by a number of aftershocks along the Sagaing fault. It also caused damage in neighbouring Thailand, where a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.
Continue reading...World Health Organization issues flash appeal for $8m of emergency support amid frantic search for survivors
AFP has spoken to relatives anxiously waiting at the site of a collapsed building in Bangkok.
Daodee Paruay said she had been at the site for two days, hoping for a miracle. Her brother was an electrician working on site, and he is believed to be under the rubble. “We wait, we wait.” she said.
Continue reading...Red Cross says devastation is of a level not seen in Asia for over a century as more than 1,700 people killed
Rescue volunteers, many of them poorly equipped local people, raced to find survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings across central Myanmar, two days after a huge earthquake killed more than 1,700 people in the country and at least 18 in neighbouring Thailand.
Red Cross officials said Myanmar was facing “a level of devastation that hasn’t been seen over a century in Asia”, after a 7.7-magnitude quake struck near the centre of the country on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.
Continue reading...Woman pulled to safety after 30 hours trapped in building a rare glimmer of hope in midst of devastation
Rescue workers battled for a second night to find survivors of Myanmar’s devastating earthquake, which has killed at least 1,644 people and injured thousands more.
Teams with little protective equipment, at times using only their bare hands, scrambled to free survivors from the rubble of countless buildings that were shattered by Friday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake.
Continue reading...Military rulers have called for ‘any country, any organisation’ to help as concerns grow over how rescuers will reach affected areas
The south-east Asian bloc Asean says it is ready to support quake recovery efforts in Myanmar and Thailand and recognises the urgent need for humanitarian assistance.
Foreign ministers from the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations said in a joint statement on Saturday that the bloc “reaffirms its solidarity with the families and communities affected by the earthquake”.
Continue reading...United States Geological Survey said the quake was shallow, at a depth of just 10km (six miles) with the epicentre near the central city of Mandalay
A 30-storey skyscraper under construction for government offices has collapsed in Bangkok trapping 43 workers, police and medics said, after the city was rocked by a strong earthquake.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the building in the north of the Thai capital was reduced to a tangle of rubble and twisted metal in seconds after the 7.7-magnitude quake in neighbouring Myanmar.
Continue reading...Witnesses in Bangkok more than 1,000km away said people ran out onto the streets in panic
An earthquake of magnitude 7.7 has struck Myanmar, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said, causing hundreds of people to pour out of swaying buildings in Bangkok, the capital of neighbouring Thailand 1,400km away.
USGS said the quake on Friday was shallow, at a depth of just 10km (six miles) with the epicentre near the central city of Mandalay, about 50km (30 miles) east of the city of Monywa.
Continue reading...Greek civil protection authorities announce measures after an estimated 7,700 tremors in less than a week
Greek civil protection authorities have declared a state of emergency on Santorini as natural disaster experts voice mounting fears over the “intense” seismic activity that has rattled the island.
The emergency measures were declared by the island’s town hall hours after seismologists recorded a 5.2-magnitude earthquake – the most powerful tremor to be felt on Santorini since the first of an estimated 7,700 temblors were registered last week.
Continue reading...Seismologist says it is ‘too early’ to link fourth event of sequence to mining activity in the Hunter region
A 4.1-magnitude earthquake that rocked the New South Wales town of Muswellbrook is likely part of an “earthquake swarm” that could see “hundreds to thousands” of small to moderate shocks over the coming months, according to a government seismologist.
The earthquake, which hit around midday on Tuesday and was shallow at 3km deep, is the fourth event over magnitude four in three months in the Hunter region. On 23 August, a 4.7-magnitude earthquake hit Muswellbrook, damaging homes and businesses.
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Continue reading...Quake near Liddell power station, one of the Coalition’s seven proposed nuclear sites, felt in Sydney, Wollongong and Dubbo
A magnitude 4.5 earthquake has hit the Hunter region of New South Wales early Saturday morning, two weeks after an earthquake of a similar size struck the region.
Geoscience Australia told Guardian Australia the earthquake was part of an “earthquake swarm” in the region: a series of moderate to large earthquakes with their own aftershock sequences.
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Continue reading...More than 2,000 people reported feeling the quake, which struck 120km northwest of Newcastle, causing windows to blow in and a chimney to topple
A magnitude 4.8 earthquake has hit New South Wales, causing windows to smash and a chimney to fall over.
The quake – revised down from a magnitude 5 – hit Denman, 120km northwest of Newcastle in the upper Hunter region. It struck at 12.02pm on Friday, with a depth of 10km, and is the largest to hit the area in 20 years.
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Continue reading...The Japan Meteorological Agency has issued its first-ever warning of the risk of a huge earthquake along the Pacific coast
Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has cancelled a visit to central Asia this weekend after experts warned that the risk of a “megaquake” occurring off the country’s Pacific coast had increased following Thursday’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake in the south-west.
Kishida, who is battling low approval ratings and faces challenges to his leadership in a ruling party presidential election next month, announced his decision at a press conference on Friday.
Continue reading...No immediate signs of damage reported after powerful quake hits off eastern coast of Kyushu
A powerful earthquake struck off Japan’s southern coast on Thursday, triggering a tsunami advisory, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said, but there were no immediate signs of major damage.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake registered a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 and was centred off the eastern coast of Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu at a depth of about 30km (18.6 miles).