Tag Archives: Earthquake

Rescuers pull more bodies from Italian hotel ruins, protests in Rome

italian firefighters working to rescue people from avalanche

By Antonio Denti and Isla Binnie

FARINDOLA, Italy (Reuters) – Rescuers on Wednesday pulled more bodies from the ruins of an Italian hotel razed by an avalanche as people who lost homes and livelihoods in deadly quakes last year protested in Rome.

Rescuers using pickaxes and mechanical diggers pulled six bodies from the rubble of Hotel Rigopiano a week after it was flattened by a wall of snow, raising the death toll to 24.

No one has been found alive since early Saturday and hopes of finding more survivors are fading. Five people are still missing after the Jan. 18 avalanche struck in the wake of heavy snow storms and a flurry of powerful earthquakes.

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said he would launch an emergency decree next week and add to money already set aside to rebuild after the area was devastated by tremors last year.

His government has earmarked 4 billion euros in this year’s budget and Gentiloni said he had told Jean Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission which oversees national finances, that they would allocate more.

“It is up to us to make sure that once the disaster is past, further injustice is not created,” he told parliament.

He has said he wants to give more power to disaster management authorities and the earthquake response will require “billions more” euros, but has given no further details.

As the premier spoke, residents of quake-struck towns including Amatrice, where 300 people died last August, marched towards parliament to protest the handling of the crisis.

“No one has done anything,” protester Maria Domenica D’Annunzio said. “A thousand cows have died. The firemen had to take them away with cranes. There are all these abandoned farmers who are still living in caravans surrounded by 2.5 meters of snow.”

Eleven guests and hotel workers survived the avalanche in the Gran Sasso national park. Snow on the road had prevented many from leaving before the disaster struck.

Prosecutors in nearby Pescara have opened an investigation which Gentiloni said would establish whether the emergency response had malfunctioned and if anyone was responsible for the tragedy.

“I share the desire to find the truth but I don’t share a certain desire which I see spreading, for scapegoats and avengers,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Gabriele Pileri, Cristiano Corvino and Crispian Balmer in Rome; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Italy avalanche death toll rises to 14

Italian firefighters working to save those buried in avalanche

FARINDOLA, Italy (Reuters) – Rescuers working through the night pulled five more bodies from the wreck of a hotel in central Italy that was razed by an avalanche last week, bringing the death toll to 14, the national fire brigade said on Tuesday.

The latest bodies – three men and two women – were recovered hours before families of victims were due to hold the first funerals of those killed in the avalanche.

Eleven people so far have been rescued from in and around the hotel in the Gran Sasso national park, some of them surviving for two days under ice and rubble.

But 15 people are still missing after a wall of snow crashed into the four-storey building last Wednesday, hours after earthquakes shook the region.

Prosecutors in nearby Pescara have opened an investigation into the avalanche.

(Reporting by Sasa Kavic and Roberto Mignucci in Farindola and Isla Binnie in Rome; Editing by Philip Pullella and Hugh Lawson)

Powerful quake strikes off Papua New Guinea, tsunami alert wound back

By Harry Pearl

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck off Papua New Guinea (PNG) on Sunday, but there were no reports of casualties or damage after a potential tsunami did not occur.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) downgraded the quake from an initial measurement of magnitude 8. It struck some 47 kms (29 miles) west of Arawa on the north coast of Bougainville Island at a depth of 154 km (96 miles), the USGS reported.

An initial tsunami alert for several Pacific islands was wound back to cover just PNG and the neighboring Solomon Islands and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later said the tsunami threat had passed safely for those countries.

Quakes are common in Papua New Guinea, which sits on the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire”, a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates.

Loti Yates, the director of the Solomon Islands National Disaster Management Office, said people had been told to move to higher ground in Choiseul and Western Province.

Chris McKee, assistant director at PNG’s Geophysical Observatory Office in Port Moresby, said there were no initial reports of damage or casualties from near the epicenter of the quake, which is sparsely populated.

Australia and New Zealand both said they had assessed the threat and there was no danger to their coastlines.

Bougainville Island is one of the islands that make up the Autonomous Region of Bougainville within Papua New Guinea (PNG) which is home to around 300,000 people.

(Additional reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in WELLINGTON; Writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Christian Schmollinger)

Quake rattles southern Iran, four Afghan laborers killed: TV

ANKARA (Reuters) – An earthquake shook Iran’s southern Fars province on Friday, killing four Afghan laborers and prompting a search operation for other casualties in the thinly-populated mountainous area, Iranian state TV said.

The shallow magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck at dawn, with its epicenter 53 km southwest (33 miles) of the city of Jahrom, the USGS said. Iranian media said the quake measured 5.1.

“Four Afghans living and working on a farm were killed … (in) Saifabad village near the town of Khonj,” state TV reported.

The governor of Fars province, Mokhtar Abbasi, told state TV that rescuers were searching the quake zone for any other victims in the sparsely populated region.

Three injured people from the village of Chartala were taken to hospital but later discharged, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Iran is criss-crossed by major fault lines and has suffered several devastating earthquakes in recent years, including a 6.6 magnitude quake in 2003 which flattened the southeastern city of Bam and killed more than 25,000 people.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; editing by Richard Lough)

Strong earthquake hits Japan, no tsunami warning

A woman reacts at a health and welfare center acting as an evacuation center after an earthquake in Mashiki town, Kumamoto prefecture, southern Japan

TOKYO (Reuters) – An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 hit eastern Japan on Wednesday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, adding no tsunami warning was issued.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries but the quake, which occurred at around 09:38 p.m. (1238 GMT), shook buildings in the capital, Tokyo.

Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc said there were no irregularities at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents unfolded after a March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The 2011 quake of magnitude 9 was the strongest ever recorded in Japan, and it generated a tsunami that knocked out the cooling function at the Fukushima plant.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said no nuclear facilities in Japan were showing signs of abnormalities following Wednesday’s quake and no power outages were reported.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka, Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Robert Birsel and John Stonestreet)

Chile’s government works to re-establish connectivity after 7.6 earthquake

A damaged road is seen after a quake at Tarahuin, on Chiloe island, southern Chile

By Gram Slattery

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chile’s government set to work on Monday repairing roads and restoring electricity to southern regions affected by a major earthquake that struck on Christmas Day, frightening thousands but resulting in no fatalities or major damage.

The quake, a magnitude 7.6 centered off Chiloe Island northwest of Patagonia, caused thousands in the tourism and salmon farming region to evacuate to higher ground amid fears of a tsunami. A tsunami never materialized however and, thanks to strict building codes in the earthquake-prone nation, structural damage was light. By Sunday night, almost all Chileans had returned to their homes.

The quake did, however, cause at least one bridge collapse, cut power to 21,000 Chileans, and severed sections of the island’s major highway.

“There are zones with landslides and cutoffs,” Chilean Public Works Minister Alberto Undurraga said in televised remarks, adding that it will take two to seven days to make the needed repairs to the area’s highways.

“All of our teams are on the island to re-establish connectivity, which is the main aspect that has affected the island. The rest is functioning normally, the cities are working.”

Chile’s energy minister, Andres Rebolledo, said on Twitter that power had been restored to all but 6,000 customers as of Sunday night.

Chile’s state-run oil company, ENAP , said on Twitter that one of its ships had already landed on Chiloe, ensuring a supply of gasoline for at least the next 15 days. In the moments after the quake, many of the island’s residents had rushed to gas stations, amid fears that damaged roads would cut supply.

The region’s only significant port, in the city of Puerto Montt, reopened after a brief closure, according to the navy, and Chile’s aquaculture service said the zone’s key salmon farming industry was not affected.

Chiloe, a misty, forested island popular with tourists for its traditional culture and pastoral scenery is in a seismically active zone, like much of Chile. As a result, the government has strict procedures to minimize damage and injuries during quakes, and residents and authorities are generally well prepared when they do strike.

“I want to emphasize the exemplary way the affected communities reacted,” Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said in a speech.

“The government will continue going out into the field, taking all the necessary measures to re-establish normalcy on Chiloe Island.”

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Antonio de la Jara; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

7.9 earthquake hits Saturday in Ring of Fire’s, Papua New Guinea

By Jonathan Barrett and Harry Pearl

SYDNEY (Reuters) – People living along Papua New Guinea’s coastline fled to higher ground on Saturday after a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck east of the Pacific nation, triggering a tsunami warning for parts of its archipelago.

A couple of hours after the quake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) said the threat had largely passed, although it said government agencies should continue to monitor coastal tides.

“Based on all available data … the tsunami threat from this earthquake has now passed,” the PTWC said in an updated and final alert after the quake, which struck 157 km (98 miles) east of Rabaul.

The major tremor initially triggered a more widespread tsunami warning for the Pacific region, including Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, but that was pulled back after the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) downgraded the magnitude slightly from 8. It also revised the depth of the tremor to 103.2 km from its original estimate of 73 kms.

Many residents in the northern parts of the autonomous region of Bougainville sought higher ground amid warnings that tsunami waves were possible.

“The town residents have vacated the whole place; those in the villages live higher up, so they’re ok, it’s just those near the coast,” local resident Christabel Biasu told Reuters by phone.

Quakes are common in Papua New Guinea, which sits on the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire”, a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties after Saturday’s major tremor.

A nurse at Buka General Hospital in Bougainville said the quake was so strong it felt like the building she was sleeping in would topple. She said patients were being moved a few kilometers to higher ground.

“We have about 16 beds,” she told Reuters by phone, declining to give her name. “Most of them are already a suburb up.”

The small Pacific nation of Nauru, where one of Australia’s offshore immigration detention centers is located, had a tsunami warning in place, according to the official government Twitter account.

Residents in other parts of Papua New Guinea, including the capital of Port Moresby and Kavieng in the northern tip of New Ireland island, said they had not felt the quake, and no evacuation plans were in place.

New Zealand also canceled an earlier tsunami warning.

(Writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

Earthquake along Ecuador’s coast kills one, destroys hotels

Map of location in Ecuador, center of earthquake

QUITO (Reuters) – A 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook Ecuador’s Pacific coast early on Monday, killing one person, injuring a dozen others and damaging hotels in the area, authorities said.

The country’s geological institute recorded the quake off the coast of Atacames in Esmeraldas province, northwest of Quito, the capital. The quake was followed by 15 lesser-magnitude aftershocks.

“We regret that a 75-year-old woman suffered a heart attack because of the quake,” national risk management secretary Susana Duenas told local radio. The health ministry said a dozen people were injured.

In a preliminary report, authorities said three hotels in the area, a popular tourist destination, were destroyed and other buildings sustained substantial damage.

President Rafael Correa was meeting with local officials in the area, which was devastated in a 7.8 magnitude quake earlier this year that killed about 670 people, displaced thousands and caused millions of dollars in damage.

Oil infrastructure in the area was unaffected by Monday’s quake, the state oil company Petroecuador said.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Solomon Islands scrambles to reach areas hit by second major quake

map of Solomon Islands

SYDNEY (Reuters) – The Solomon Islands plans to dispatch emergency supplies to areas affected by a 6.9 magnitude aftershock on Saturday, a day after a much larger tremor triggered a tsunami warning that send hundreds of coastal people fleeing into the hills.

General Secretary of the Solomon Islands Red Cross Joanne Zoleveke said the supply boat could take almost 24 hours to reach Makira Island, which lies close to the epicentre of Friday’s deeper 7.8 magnitude earthquake.

Both quakes triggered tsunami warnings which were lifted a short time later.

“We are working with the National Disaster Office of the Government and we’ve mobilised our emergency response teams to accompany the government officers and other international non-governmental organisations that are going on this boat,” Zoleveke said.

Makira Island’s airstrip services small planes incapable of shuttling the volume of aid required for the relief effort.

“We still don’t have that much detail but we know people are really affected by what’s happened,” Zoleveke said.

Zoloveke said based on reports received by two-way radio, Friday’s quake caused significant damage and forced people from homes in the town of Kirakira on Makira Island, about 200 km from the Pacific Island nation’s capital of Honiara.

She said she knew of only one reported casualty, a 25-year-old with non-specific injuries. The remoteness of the region and the failure of communications meant it was impossible to know the full extent of any injuries or damage, she said.

Australia has provided A$50,000 ($37,235) worth of supplies and a helicopter to undertake an initial assessment of affected areas to help target relief efforts, Zoloveke said.

Suzy Sainovski of World Vision in Honiara said staff from the humanitarian organisation in Kirakira saw people fleeing to higher ground.

“One of the reasons we need to get them shelter assistance (is) because it’s the start of the wet season here,” Sainovski said.

($1 = 1.3428 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Jane Wardell and Peter Gosnell; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Christopher Cushing)

Rescue operations near end in Indonesia’s quake-stricken Aceh

Indonesian soldiers help to secure an area where rescue and salvage operations take place at a collapsed building following this week's strong earthquake in Meureudu, Pidie Jaya, Aceh province, Indonesia

By Tommy Ardiansyah and Djohan Widjaya

PIDIE JAYA, Indonesia (Reuters) – Indonesian officials said on Friday search and rescue operations were nearing an end three days after a powerful earthquake hit the northern province of Aceh, killing 100 people and leaving thousands homeless.

Wednesday’s 6.5 magnitude earthquake, which toppled dozens of buildings and injured hundreds of people, was the worst disaster to hit the region since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

 

A Muslim man weeps as he arrives for Friday prayers at Jami Quba mosque which collapsed during this week's earthquake in Pidie Jaya, Aceh province, Indonesia

A Muslim man weeps as he arrives for Friday prayers at Jami Quba mosque which collapsed during this week’s earthquake in Pidie Jaya, Aceh province, Indonesia December 9, 2016. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside

“We believe we have found 99 percent of the victims,” said Sutopo Nugroho, spokesman of the national disaster management agency.

The agency revised the death toll down to 100 from 102.

Hundreds of people in Aceh’s Pidie Jaya regency held Friday prayers outside mosques that had been reduced to rubble.

Many residents of the town of 140,000 have been sleeping in shelters and relief workers have been handing out food, water, and blankets.

President Joko Widodo visited survivors, including many getting treatment for broken bones in hospitals and tent clinics.

The province of Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, has declared a two-week state of emergency and the central government has pledged aid for recovery efforts.

A Dec. 26, 2004, earthquake and tsunami killed more than 120,000 people in Aceh.

In all, the 2004 tsunami killed 226,000 people along Indian Ocean shorelines.

(Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Robert Birsel)