MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Fox News – “YANGON, Burma – A strong earthquake of magnitude-6.8 struck northern Myanmar on Sunday, collapsing a bridge and a gold mine, damaging several old Buddhist pagodas and leaving as many as 12 people feared dead.

A slow release of official information left the actual extent of the damage unclear after Sunday morning’s strong quake. Myanmar has a poor official disaster response system, despite having lost upward of 140,000 people to a devastating cyclone in 2008.

Myanmar’s second-biggest city of Mandalay reported no casualties or major damage as the nearest major population center to the main quake Mandalay lies about 117 kilometers (72 miles) south of the quake’s epicenter near the town of Shwebo.

Smaller towns closer to the main quake’s epicenter were worse hit.

The area surrounding the epicenter is underdeveloped, and casualty reports were coming in piecemeal, mostly from local media. The region is a center for mining of minerals and gemstones, and several mines were reported to have collapsed.

The evening news on state television showed Vice President Sai Maul Hkam visiting the town of Thabeikyin, where the report said damage included 102 homes, 21 religious buildings, 48 government offices and four schools. The town, a gold-mining center, is near the quake’s epicenter and had casualties of three dead and 35 injured. The report brought total officially confirmed casualties to six killed and 64 injured.

Independently compiled tallies suggested a death toll of about a dozen.” Read more.

Strong 6.8 Earthquake In Burma Rattles Residents – “According to news reports, the most significant damage appeared to be the collapsing of bridge under construction across the Irrawaddy River in the town of Shwebo, the location of the quake’s epicenter. The website of Weekly Eleven magazine said five people were killed when the bridge, which was 80 percent built, collapsed. ‘This is the worst earthquake I felt in my entire life,’ said Soe Soe, a 52-year-old Shwebo resident. According to Soe Soe, the huge concrete gate of a monastery collapsed and several sculptures from another pagoda were damaged in the town.” Read more.

By Sid Perkins and Nature Magazine via Scientific American – “The surprise magnitude-5.8 earthquake that stuck central Virginia and rattled cities up and down the US East Coast last year was a record-breaker in more ways than one. Not only was it felt by more Americans than any previous tremor, it triggered landslides over a wider area than any other recorded quake anywhere in the world, scientists say. A detailed analysis of ground motions triggered by the event also indicates that Washington DC and other affected population centers could be at a higher risk of major ground movement than previously recognized.

Centered roughly 130 kilometers south-southwest of the US capital, near the town of Mineral, Virginia, the 23 August 2011 quake was the strongest to strike the eastern United States since 1897, Susan Hough, a seismologist with the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Pasadena, California, reported this week at the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. The quake was felt from Florida to southeastern Canada and as far west as Wisconsin, she noted. By some estimates, as much as one-third of the US population was shaken by it.

Because of a variety of factors, including the age, type, temperature and density of the rocks underlying the eastern United States, seismic waves are transmitted more efficiently there than in the western states. The area shaken by the magnitude-5.8 quake was approximately the same size as that rocked by a much larger magnitude-7.2 tremor that struck Baja California in April 2010, Hough noted.

Quake damage
The Virginia quake was strong enough to do serious damage to some of Washington’s landmark buildings. The National Cathedral suffered about US$20 million in structural damage, including fallen statues and cracked gargoyles. At the Washington Monument, much of the damage was confined to the pyramid-shaped top of the 169-meter-tall obelisk. Analyses of seismic data gathered at an instrument near the monument suggest that accelerations due to ground motions did not exceed 0.07g. That would normally not be expected to cause damage, but Donald Wells, an engineering geologist at AMEC, a consulting firm in Oakland, California, says his team’s models suggest that passing seismic waves vibrated the tall, slim monument like a tuning fork.

Other data from the Virginia earthquake suggest that US cities on the eastern seaboard could be more affected by future earthquakes of a given size than previously thought.” Read more.

• Related: Irene Reveals More Cracks in Quake-Damaged Washington Monument
• Related: Park Service: Washington Monument Now Closed Indefinitely After Crack Also Found On Lower Portion

Two strong earthquakes today along the Pacific coast. The one earlier in Guatemala has now killed at least 48. No reports of any injuries from the 6.3 in British Columbia …

Magnitude: 6.3
Location: 49.185°N, 128.528°W
Depth: 16.6 km (10.3 miles)
Region: VANCOUVER ISLAND, CANADA REGION
Distance: 186 km (115 miles) SSW of Port Hardy, Canada

North Island Gazette – “Natural Resources Canada said no reports of damage would be expected from the quake, which struck at 6:01 p.m. Nov. 7. The U.S. National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration indicated it was a deep quake, occurring at a depth of approximately 43 kilometres. The quake occurred just less than 12 hours after a magnitude 4.0 aftershock hit in the Haida Gwaii region, the most recent notable aftershock since a major 7.7-magnitude quake struck the area the evening of Oct. 27. That quake resulted in a tsunami warning that encompassed North Vancouver Island and led to evacuations of low-lying areas in and around Port Hardy and Port McNeill.” Read more.

FOX News – “SAN MARCOS, Guatemala – A 7.4-magnitude earthquake rocked Guatemala on Wednesday, killing at least 48 people in two provinces as it toppled thick adobe walls, shook huge landslides down onto highways, and sent terrified villagers streaming into the streets of this idyllic mountain town near the border with Mexico. One hundred people were missing, and hundreds were injured.

The quake, which hit at 10:35 a.m. in the midst of the work day, caused terror over an unusually wide area, with damage reported in all but one of Guatemala’s 22 states and shaking felt as far away as Mexico City, 600 miles to the northwest.

President Otto Perez Molina said at a news conference that 40 people died in the province of San Marcos and eight more were killed in the neighboring province of Quetzaltenango.

San Marcos, where more than 30 homes collapsed, bore the brunt of the temblor’s fury.

More than 300 people, including firefighters, policemen and villagers, tried to dig through a half ton of sand at a quarry in the commercial center of town in a desperate attempt to rescue seven people believed buried alive. Among those under the sand was a 6-year-old boy who had accompanied his grandfather to work.

‘I want to see Giovanni! I want to see Giovanni!’ the boy’s mother, 42-year-old Francisca Ramirez, frantically cried. ‘He’s not dead. Get him out.’ She said the boy’s father had emigrated to the U.S. and there was no way to reach him.

Perez flew to San Marcos to view the damage in this lush mountainous region of 50,000 indigenous farmers and ranchers, many belonging to the Mam ethnic group.

‘One thing is to hear about what happened and another thing entirely is to see it,’ Perez told The Associated Press. ‘As a Guatemalan I feel sad … to see mothers crying for their lost children.'” Read more.

According to the USGS, a powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake just struck the Pacific coast of British Columbia, Canada, at a depth of only 10.9 miles (17.5 km), the strongest earthquake to hit the region since the 8.1 magnitude quake that struck the Queen Charlotte Fault on August 22, 1949.  Shallow earthquakes tend to be larger, and therefore more damaging, earthquakes. There are reports coming out of Vancouver that people living in high-rise apartments felt their building sway. Fortunately, the epicentre is located in the sparsely populated region of the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii), though a tsunami warning has been issued for coastal areas along British Columbia and Alaska from the northern tip of Vancouver Island …

By Robert Robertsson and Patrick Lannin -“(Reuters) – Icelandic authorities warned people in the north of the island on Thursday to prepare for a possible big earthquake after the biggest tremors in the area for 20 years.

The north Atlantic island, where almost 320,000 people live, is a hotspot of volcanic and seismic activity as it straddles a fault in the earth’s surface.

The Civil Protection Department said in a statement that recent small quakes in an area under the sea about 20 km (12 miles) off the north of Iceland had prompted it to issue a warning to local people.

It said such shocks, one of which was a magnitude 5.6, often led to stronger quakes. Warnings were issued when there were grounds to expect a natural or manmade event that could threaten health and human safety, it added.

‘People are anxious because they don’t know what might happen,’ said Amundi Gunnarsson, chief of the fire brigade in Fjallabyggd, one of the small towns in the area, and a member of the Civil Protection Department.

‘At the same time, life goes on as usual. People are going to work and children are going to school, but everyone is on alert,’ he told Reuters by telephone.

The coastal area in the north is home to several small towns and a population of several thousand people.

The biggest town in the north of Iceland, Akureyri, has a population of about 17,000 people, and lies roughly 100 km south of the seismic activity.

Geologist Benedikt Ofeigsson said houses in Iceland could typically withstand quakes of a magnitude about 7.

‘Of course there could be some damage to in walls and concrete in such strong earthquakes, but what is important that houses have stood firm,’ he told Reuters.” Source – Reuters.

CNN – “A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck southwest Colombia Sunday afternoon, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, CNN affiliate Caracol Television reported.

The quake was centered 10 km (6 miles) west-northwest of Isnos, Colombia, and 334 km (214 mi) northeast of Quito, Ecuador, the USGS said on its website. It was felt in Bogota — the nation’s capital and largest city — Caracol reported.

It occurred at a depth of 162.1 km (100.7 miles), the USGS said.

‘Deep earthquakes in this region … are not uncommon; there have been 13 similar events deeper than 100 km over the past 40 years, within 500 km’ of Sunday’s earthquake, the USGS said.” Source – CNN.

Associated Press – “BEIJING — Twin earthquakes and a spate of aftershocks struck southwestern China on Friday, toppling thousands of houses and sending boulders cascading across roads. At least 64 people were killed and hundreds injured in the remote mountainous area, and more than 100,000 residents were evacuated.

Damage was preventing rescuers from reaching outlying towns, and communications were disrupted after the midday quakes hit along the borders of Guizhou and Yunnan provinces, a rural region where some of China’s poorest people live.

The first 5.6-magnitude quake struck just before 11:30 a.m. and was followed by an equally strong quake shortly after noon, joined by dozens of aftershocks. Though of moderate strength, the quakes were shallow, which often causes more damage.

Hardest hit was Yiliang County, where all but one of the deaths occurred, according to the Yunnan provincial government’s official website. Another 715 people in the area were injured. Yiliang’s high population density, shoddy building construction and propensity for landslides were blamed for the relatively high death toll.

China Central Television showed roads littered with rocks and boulders and pillars of dust rising over hilltops from the landslides. One image taken just as one quake struck showed people running out of a supermarket as the ground shook.

Other footage showed several hundred people crowding into a school athletic field in Yiliang’s county seat, a sizable city spread along a river in a valley, as well as soldiers carrying injured people and rescue materials.” Read more.

Reuters – “A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake rocked Costa Rica on Wednesday, rattling buildings, cutting power in areas of the capital and triggering a tsunami warning.

Residents of San Jose said phones went down, electricity poles rattled on the streets and water flowed out of pools during the quake, but the Red Cross said no casualties had been reported so far.

‘It was terrible. I was on the third floor, I had never felt anything like it,’ said Stephanie Gonzalez, a 25-year-old masters student in the capital.

The quake’s epicenter was in western Costa Rica about 87 miles from San Jose, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said, and it was felt as far away as Managua, the capital of neighboring Nicaragua.

‘People are very frightened and staying in their homes,’ said Eliecer Gonzalez, commercial director of a local newspaper in the Guanacaste region on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast. ‘We are very isolated and have no power.’

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for Pacific coastlines of Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama. It had earlier warned of tsunamis for as far afield as Mexico and Peru.

It was the biggest earthquake in Costa Rica since a 7.6 quake in 1991 left 47 dead. More recently, 40 people died in a 6.1 magnitude quake in January 2009.” Source – Reuters.