Japan earthquake shakes Tokyo buildings 2011

Japan earthquake: 7.2 tremor shakes Tokyo buildings

An earthquake of 7.2 magnitude has struck off the coast of Japan, shaking buildings in the capital, Tokyo, and triggering a small tsunami.

The tremor was centred 168km (104 miles) from the east coast, north-east of Tokyo.

A 60cm (24in) tsunami reached the coastal town of Ofunato, with other towns reporting smaller waves shortly after the quake hit at 1145 (0245 GMT).

There are so far no reports of damage or injuries.

Japan is well-prepared for quakes which often hit the seismically active area.

An aftershock measuring 6.3 magnitude struck after the main quake, Japan's meteorological agency said, followed by a series of smaller aftershocks.

Some train services in the area were temporarily halted after the quake, but they were restarted shortly after noon.

Tohoku Electric Power said its Onagawa nuclear plant was operating normally after the quake and Tokyo Electric Power also said its power supplies were unaffected.

Tsunami in Japan after Earth quake

Tsunami hits north-eastern Japan after massive quake

A massive 8.9 magnitude quake hit northeast Japan Friday, causing many injuries, fires and a four-meter (13-ft) tsunami along parts of the country's coastline.

There were several strong aftershocks and a warning of a 10-meter tsunami following the quake, which also caused buildings to shake violently in the capital Tokyo.

TV pictures showed a vast wall of water carrying buildings and debris across a large swathe of coastal farmland.

Public broadcaster NHK showed flames and black smoke billowing from a building in Odaiba, a Tokyo suburb, and bullet trains to the north of the country were halted.

Black smoke was also pouring out of an industrial area in Yokohama's Isogo area. TV footage showed boats, cars and trucks floating in water after a small tsunami hit the town of Kamaichi in northern Japan. An overpass, location unknown, appeared to have collapsed into the water.

Kyodo news agency said there were reports of fires in the city of Sendai in the northeast.

"The building shook for what seemed a long time and many people in the newsroom grabbed their helmets and some got under

their desks," Reuters correspondent Linda Sieg said in Tokyo.

"It was probably the worst I have felt since I came to Japan more than 20 years ago."

Passengers on a subway line in Tokyo screamed and grabbed other passengers' hands. The shaking was so bad it was hard to stand, said Reuters reporter Mariko Katsumura.

Hundreds of office workers and shoppers spilled into Hitotsugi street, a shopping street in Akasaka in downtown Tokyo.

Household goods ranging from toilet paper to clingfilm were flung into the street from outdoor shelves in front of a drugstore.

Crowds gathered in front of televisions in a shop next to the drugstore for details. After the shaking from the first quake subsided, crowds were watching and pointing to construction cranes on an office building up the street with voices saying, "They're still shaking!," "Are they going to fall?"

Asagi Machida, 27, a web designer in Tokyo, sprinted from a coffee shop when the quake hit.

"The images from the New Zealand earthquake are still fresh in my mind so I was really scared. I couldn't believe such a big earthquake was happening in Tokyo."

New Zealand Earthquake toll at 98 dead, 226 missing

Rescuers fanned out into unchecked areas of New Zealand's quake-devastated city Thursday looking for any remaining life in the rubble, as the death toll rose to 98 with "grave fears" that many of the 226 missing are dead.

"Rescue team! Rescue team!" a visiting firefighter from Australia called out as his team went through an office building apparently abandoned during Tuesday's disaster in Christchurch. There was no response.

Police said up to 120 bodies may still lie trapped in the tangled concrete and steel that was the Canterbury Television or CTV building, where dozens of students from Japan, Thailand, China and other Asian countries were believed buried when an English-language school collapsed along with other offices. Twenty-three bodies were pulled from the building Thursday, but not immediately identified.

"The longer I don't know what happened, the longer my agony becomes," said Rolando Cabunilas, 34, a steel worker from the Philippines whose wife, Ivy Jane, 33, was on her second day of class at the school when the quake struck. She hasn't been heard from since.

"I can't describe it — it's pain, anger, all emotions," he said.

Officials appealed to families of the missing to be patient, saying the agony could be worse if they rushed the identifications and came to wrong conclusions.

The official death toll from the 6.3-magnitude temblor stood at 98, police Superintendent Dave Cliff said. An additional 226 people were listed as missing, and Prime Minister John Key said there were "grave fears" that many of them did not survive.

Among the confirmed dead were two infant boys, one 9 months old, the other 5 months, Cliff said. He did not give details of their deaths.

Two days after the quake and with no one pulled alive from the wreckage for more than 24 hours, the focus was shifting away from possible rescues toward the recovery of bodies and securing the uncertain number of buildings left dangerously wobbly.

Authorities also struggled to restore power, reliable phones and water — Mayor Bob Parker warned residents to assume that tap water is contaminated and boil it before drinking it or cooking with it. People were streaming out of the city to stay with friends or relatives. The Civil Defense Ministry said about 1,000 had used special flights sending people to other cities.

A video released Thursday showed rescuers in the immediate aftermath of the quake Tuesday, when a team lined a mine-like shaft through the rubble of the Pyne Gould Guinness building, pulling a man, then a woman from between collapsed floors.

"When I saw his face, right there in front of me I just burst into tears, I was just so, so happy," trapped woman Roslyn Chapman said of her rescuer. "I just felt so lucky and to get down on the street and see my fiance ... and to turn around and look at that building I just can't believe we made it out of there alive," she told TV New Zealand, which broadcast the footage, shot by a rescuer.

There was more misery for the family of Donna Manning, a morning show presenter whose teen-aged children Kent and Lizzy held a vigil outside the CTV building until being told by police Tuesday their mother could not have survived. As they were waiting, their home was robbed, Manning's brother Maurice Gardner told TVNZ.

Hundreds of foreign specialists — from the U.S., Britain, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan — arrived to bolster local police and soldiers and allow teams to broaden their search to smaller buildings not yet checked.

"Now we've got the capability of going out and doing searches in areas where there may still be people trapped that hitherto we haven't been able to address," Civil Defense Minister John Carters said.

Teams dressed in blue coveralls and orange helmets and with sniffer dogs moved along city streets lined with one- and two-story office buildings, small stores, restaurants and cafes. The brick facades of some had fallen onto sidewalks, and car after car parked at the curb lay crushed under heavy steel awnings.

They went building to building. At times, a dog would let out a bark and rush excitedly into the rubble, the rescuers following gingerly after them. At one place, they uncovered a body pinned under a huge chunk of concrete.

Mayor Bob Parker said 60 percent of a broad area of the inner city had undergone preliminary checks, with searchers marking some buildings as too dangerous to enter, and others as needing more detailed checks later.

Key has declared the quake a national disaster, which analysts estimate could cost up to $12 billion in insurance losses.

The water system for Christchurch and surrounding areas was in disarray.

Parker said water was still out for half of the city and that it might be contaminated for the other half, so all residents should boil it before using it to drink, wash or cook because of the risk of disease.

Fourteen water tankers have been dispatched around the city for people to fill buckets or other containers, and residents were urged not to flush toilets or use showers.

Power was restored to 75 percent of the city, but it could take weeks to repair supplies to the rest, said Roger Sutton, CEO of supplier Orion.

Tuesday's quake was the second major temblor to strike the city in the past five months.

It was less powerful than the 7.1 temblor that struck before dawn on Sept. 4, damaging buildings but killing no one. Experts said Tuesday's quake was deadlier because it was closer to the city and because more people were about.

Earthquake in New Zealand city of Christchurch

New Zealand quake: 300 missing, 75 bodies recovered.

Three hundred people are missing and 75 bodies have been recovered from the quake ravaged New Zealand city of Christchurch, local authorities said Wednesday.

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said there were now 55 identified bodies at a morgue, which had been set up at local military base. Another 20 bodies had been recovered, but were not yet at the morgue and had yet to be identified.

Parker said it was hoped that many of those 300 missing people would be accounted for over the course of the day.

Search and rescue staff also said many people remain trapped alive inside buildings destroyed by the 6.3-magnitude earthquake Tuesday afternoon.

More than 120 people had already been pulled from collapsed buildings as rescuers worked through the night under floodlights in the rain.

Search efforts are concentrating around 10 buildings, where it is feared more than 100 people could still be trapped. These included a number of Japanese students who had been studying English in Christchurch.

Fifteen people were confirmed alive in one building as rescuers tried to get to them as quickly as possible through tonnes of rubble.

Earlier police said they were having to leave bodies as they concentrated on getting to survivors, some of whom had to have limbs amputated to get them out of rubble.

Prime Minister John Key said Tuesday night that New Zealand faced one of its darkest days.

Key held an emergency cabinet meeting Wednesday and pledged all assistance possible to Christchurch in both the initial aftermath and the long rebuilding programme ahead. He thanked the international community for assistance.

More than 200 patients have been admitted to Christchurch Hospital's emergency department with many more treated at emergency medical stations around the city.

Injuries range from minor cuts to serious spinal injuries with some patients airlifted to Auckland 1,000 km away.

There were now more than 200 search and rescue staff working through the city with another 500 joining them over the next two days as international offers for assistance come in. More than 1,000 armed forces have also been deployed to assist.

The quake struck Tuesday at 12.51 p.m. when office buildings and streets were full of people.

The quake was much shallower and nearer to the city than the 7.1 quake that caused widespread damage in September but resulted in no deaths.

Buildings that stood up to last year's event, including an historic cathedral, collapsed this time.

Electricity, water, sewer and gas lines were disrupted by the quake with fires breaking out in the city overnight.

Most of the city has no water supply and all schools and most businesses were closed with people being urged to stay at home and consider leaving the Christchurch area if possible.

Communication with the area was difficult with phone systems disrupted and there have been appeals for people to stop using mobile phones throughout New Zealand.

Christchurch is New Zealand's second-largest city and home to around 370,000 people.

The quake was felt throughout New Zealand and caused 30 million tonnes of ice to break off from the Tasman Glacier, about 200 km away.

Dave Lindahl

Two powerful Earth Quakes jolt central Chile

Two powerful Earth Quakes in central coastal area of Chile.

Two earthquakes have struck the central coastal area of Chile, rattling the same region hit by last year's magnitude 8.8 quake.

A magnitude 6.8 quake, followed by another with a magnitude of 6.3, occurred off the Pacific coast of Chile on Friday.

The US Geological Survey and Chile's national emergency office said the first quake struck Friday in the Pacific, 70 kilometers (45 miles) from the city of Concepcion.

The epicenter was relatively close to the coast, at 36 degrees south latitude and 73 degrees west longitude -- almost exactly the same location where the devastating February 27, 2010 earthquake was centered, but half as deep, at 18 kilometers (11 miles).

There were no immediate reports of major damage or injury, but the quake was felt in a wide area of central Chile.

Thousands of people, especially along the coast, fled to higher ground following the earthquake.

“The navy has totally discounted any risk of a tsunami,” AP quoted Interior Ministry official Rodrigo Ubillo as saying on Friday.

President Sebastian Pinera appealed for calm and praised his government and Chileans in general for responding quickly.

"Today we're better prepared," Pinera said. "I think we've learned the lesson of February 27, 2010."

Last year's disaster led to at least 521 deaths and 30 billion dollars in damage and prompted an inquiry over the failure to deliver a timely tsunami warning.

Dave Lindahl Scam

Earthquake in Indonesia: Tsunami Nearby Sumatra

Earthquake hits Indonesia, tsunami warning lifted nearby Sumatra.

Earthquake News Updates! A major earthquake of magnitude 7.7 struck the western coast of Sumatra (Indonesia) some hours ago and as a result of it, a tsunami of about 3 meter hit the nearby residents. There is however no casualties reported yet. The earthquake struck at about 14:42 GMT (21.42 Indonesian time).

The epicenter of the quake was located nearby the Mentawai Islands which is about 240 Km south of Padang (West Sumatra) and at about 20 kilometers deep. The United States Geological Survey says that the earthquake was a shallow one. Following the earthquake, Indonesia’s seismological agency immediately issues a tsunami alert for all nearby coastlines.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center also issued a tsunami watch, which was canceled about an hour later. While officials initially said no tsunami had been generated, officials later said the huge earthquake had generated a significant tsunami that struck nearby areas. And while the tsunami was in most locations relatively small, the wave was large enough to travel hundreds of kilometers (miles) from the earthquake epicenter.

According to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, small tsunamis were also recorded in Tanahbalah, Padang and Enggano in Indonesia. Fortunately, there were no reports of casualties from both the tsunami as well as the earthquake in any of these regions.

Earth Quake Spawns Tsunami in Vanuatu

7.5 Mag Earth Quake Spawns Tsunami in Vanuatu.

Panicked residents of Vanuatu raced for higher ground after a powerful earthquake rattled the South Pacific island nation and generated a small tsunami on Tuesday.

The 9-inch wave was observed off the capital Port Vila, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. Police said there were no immediate reports of major damage or injuries from the wave or the 7.5 magnitude quake that preceded it, though buildings shook and power lines were down.

"It was quite a significant earthquake, and we're still having a few aftershocks," Ben McKenzie of the New Zealand High Commission told The Associated Press by phone from Port Vila.

The quake hit about 25 miles northwest of Port Vila at a depth of 22 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Police spokesman John Frat told the AP that officials had not received any reports of injuries or major damage, but described the temblor as "a very sharp quake -- it was the worst I have felt in my life."

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