Maine Earthquake Rattles Much of New England

Residents throughout New England felt some shaking in the evening hours on Tuesday when the region was rocked by a temblor that had a preliminary measurement of 4.0.

“I literally thought my furnace was exploding,” said Portland resident and Brewer native Holly Barber, a guidance counselor at Lake Region High School in Naples. “I live in Deering Center on Pleasant Avenue, and I was right here in my room.”

The quake was centered 3 miles west of Hollis Center and 13 miles northwest of Biddeford, according to the United States Geological Survey, and was just over 4 miles deep. The service notes the quake occurred at 7:12 p.m. Tuesday.

Reports of the quake spread like wildfire through social media. A Facebook group created shortly after it struck, called “I survived the 10/16/12 earthquake,” was liked by more than 38,000 people by approximately 8:20 p.m. On Twitter, users reported feeling the tremors from around the state.

While there were no immediate reports of physical damage, some users reported problems with cellphone providers AT&T and Verizon Wireless and phone provider Time Warner after the quake.

The Maine Emergency Management Agency had no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Spokespeople for AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless said their towers were not damaged.

Andrew Russell, manager of communications at Time Warner Cable, said “there were intermittent service outages after the quake” but service was back to normal late Tuesday night.

But high call volume may have caused problems with service, according to the AT&T spokeswoman

While not unheard of on the east coast, quakes that powerful are relatively rare for New England. In August of 2011, much of the Mid-Atlantic region including Washington DC was rocked by a magnitude 5.8 quake centered near the small town of Mineral, VA.

While I missed out on what was shaking today, I remember growing up as a lad in Western New England and being at a relative's house that was built in the 1770s. Local lore claimed that the residence was haunted and one night, a female relative not much older than me came flying down the stairs, panicked and swearing up and down that one of the rocking chairs in the hallway began rocking back and forth on its own. Not prone to flights of fancy and exaggeration, her claims were taken at face value, and the grown-ups were scratching their heads over some sort of a non-paranormal explanation.

It came on the front page of the next day's newspaper when the headlines announced a magnitude 6 earthquake up in Quebec. We figured that while we may not have actually have felt the quake, it was still strong enough to shake the floors of the old house and make the rocking chair look like it was rocking back and forth on its own.

Oklahoma Jolted By Magnitude 5.6 Earthquake

Sue Ogrocki/ AP

The Sooner state isn't the first place that springs to mind when one think of seismic activity, but a magnitude 5.6 earthquake that was felt as far away as Wisconsin and Tennessee shook the region on Saturday night.

“The picture by the TV fell off the wall, and we jumped up because we thought somebody had hit the house,” Noeh Morales said.

“It was like a roaring noise. I’ve never one that bad over here,” he said.

Morales said he was asleep at his home near SW 69 and Pennsylvania Avenue in Oklahoma City.

“It woke me out of a dead sleep. I felt the whole house shaking. I jumped and ran outside to see what was going on,” he said.

The strongest earthquake previously reported was April 9, 1952, in El Reno, according to the geological survey. Its magnitude was 5.50.

Michelann Ooten, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said no injuries were reported to emergency management officials and she had no reports of major damages.

The Lincoln County sheriff’s office said late Saturday that damage has been reported across the county, but officials still were responding to calls and were not sure of the extent of damage.

"It was a pretty ornery little earthquake," said Joey Wakefield, Lincoln County's emergency manager.

The Oklahoma City Fire Department reported no injuries or serious damage as of 11:15 p.m.

The Saturday night tremors were part of a series of fore and aftershocks throughout the day. In addition to reports of scattered damages to various residential structures, the quake also toppled one of the spires of the Benedictine Hall at St Gregory's University in Shawnee (pictured above) and buckled portions of US Highway 62 in Lincoln County.

The epicenter of the quake was reportedly some 70 miles northeast of Oklahoma city in the town of Sparks in Lincoln County. Interestingly, ESPN indavertently caught the quake on camera when correspondent Kirk Herbstreit was doing a postgame show from the Oklahoma State/Kansas State football game in Stillwater, OK.

Virginia, East Coast Rocked By Magnitude 5.8 Quake

Tremors from a magnitude 5.9 earthquake on Tuesday afternoon in Virginia prompted evacuations in the Pentagon and Capitol building and was felt as far away as Ohio and Toronto.

The quake rocked Virginia just before 1:55 p.m. [E.T.], and authorities said the epicenter appeared to be in Louisa County, about 40 miles northwest of Richmond. The epicenter is not far from Dominion Virginia Power's North Anna nuclear plant, where the earthquake knocked out power, but the utility manually shut down both nuclear units without incident.

"We did lose on-site power, but all the diesel generators are up and running," Dominion spokesman Richard Zuercher said 30 minutes after the quake. "Everything appears to be operating just fine."

The quake- the largest in Virginia since May 5, 1897, according to the U.S. Geological Survey- shook buildings and employees were ordered outside across Richmond and other cities in Virginia. Within minutes, Richmond police began receiving calls about possible property damage.

So far, there have been no reports of any casualties or injuries, but there are scattered reports of some structural damage around Mineral, VA and 90 miles to the north in the Washington D.C. area.

The town of Culpepper, VA was placed under a state of emergency and the local jail evacuated immediately after the Tuesday afternoon quake.

To the north, the National Parks Service began shutting down monuments across Washington D.C. as a precaution.

The central spire on Washington D.C.'s National Cathedral- the highest point in the District of Columbia- was damaged in the quake, with cross shaped finial stones being knocked off the top of three out of the four spires and one leaning inward.

Both the Pentagon and US Capitol Building were briefly evacuated- Congress is in recess for the summer, but staffers were still present at the Capitol building.

In Washington D.C.'s Union Station, the quake reportedly knocked down some ceiling tiles in the main concourse, although there was no reports of any injuries. Amtrak was operating trains between Baltimore and Washington D.C. at a restricted speed while commuter railways MARC and Virginia Railway Express briefly suspended operations as track, structures and wiring leading in and out of Union Station were inspected for damage.

Further south, the two main rail carriers operating closer to the epicenter- CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern- restricted freight trains to operating speeds of 10-15 MPH while tracks, bridges, tunnels and signals were being inspected for damage by Maintenance of Way personnel.

Airports throughout the Mid Atlantic region suspended flights on Tuesday afternoon. Dulles Airport, Reagan National, BWI, Atlantic City, Newark, Philadelphia and New York's JFK were among the international airports that had suspended flights with flights resuming by Tuesday night in the New York area. The quake reportedly registered as strong as 5.4 on the Richter scale in New York state.

The Mineral quake comes not even 24 hours after the USGS reported a magnitude 5.3 earthquake at 11:46 PM Mountain Time outside of Trinidad, CO on Monday night. Records indicate it was the strongest quake in Colorado in over a century, although there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. Geologists have indicated that the Colorado and Virginia quakes are unrelated.

Japan Update: Trouble Persists at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant; More Dramatic Video Surfaces; Death Toll Mounts as Rescuers Still Finding Survivors

Workers attempting to bring the damaged reactors at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant under control were evacuated temporarily on Monday after a plume of grey smoke rose from the plant's reactor #3.

The news came after TEPCO confirmed power cables had been connected to all six nuclear reactors at the stricken power plant

The last two reactors to be hooked up to power from the main grid today were reactors No. 3 and No. 4, the two most badly damaged units, company officials told a briefing.

The company, meanwhile, is checking for damage to the plant's reactor cooling systems and other plant machinery before attempting to power them up.

It is operating equipment using grid power at reactor No. 5 only, one of the least damaged reactors, the officials said.

The cooling systems - designed to protect the plant's six reactors from a potentially disastrous meltdown - were knocked out by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and engineers have been battling rising temperatures ever since.

Workers had been struggling all week to shut down the quake damaged reactors after the strongest quake in Japan's recorded history and subsequent tsunami damaged some of the backup power and cooling systems. While the surrounding 12 miles of the plant were evacuated, some 200 Volunteers have been working in shifts of 50 each to operate the equipment, monitor gauges and clear obstructions from the various pipes in the facility.

The JSDF had also been called in last week to use Chinook helicopters to dump seawater and a compound consisting of boron onto the overheating reactors. This step was considered a 'last resort' by many observers as the salt water would be highly corrosive, meaning that the reactors could never be used again. The JSDF had also brought in at least six fire trucks capable of continuously pumping seawater onto spent fuel rods and overheating reactor #3.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, the Japanese government had reported that higher than normal levels of radiation were found in spinach and milk at farms in the vicinity of Fukushima- some farms as far as 100km away. While positioned off of Japan's east coast, the USS Ronald Reagan had detected increased levels of radiation last week and 17 crew members had to undergo decontamination after returning to the carrier from search and rescue duties.

ELSEWHERE IN JAPAN: As the situation unfolds in Fukushima Daiichi, more eyewitness video is surfacing demonstrating the staggering impact of the quake (which the USGS has officially changed to 9.0) and subsequent tsunami. This video embedded below shows black, churning water cascading over a seawall at Miyako in the Iwate prefecture while boats and cars caught up in the wave getting tossed around like bathtub toys



Another videotape has surfaced that was filmed from inside a car driving right next to the coast when the tsunami hit.

Searchers and rescue workers have discovered survivors in the rubble or washed out to sea in the week following the quake, including a 4 month old baby girl in the town of Ishinomaki, an 80 year old woman and her 16 year old grandson were pulled from the rubble of their home in the same town nearly a week later and a 60 year old man was rescued after being stranded on the roof of his demolished home that was washed 10 miles out to sea.

Ring of Fire Update- Pacific Island Chain of Tonga Rocked by Magnitude 6.1 Quake; Explosion Reported at Japanese Nuclear Plant

The 'Ring of Fire'- the seismic and volcanically active reigon encirling the Pacific Ocean from New Zealand's South Island to Russia's Kamchatka peninsula to Chile's Tierra de Fuego- has been unusually active this month.

TONGA: Not even a day after the massive earthquake in Japan that triggered deadly tsunamis, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck the Pacific archipelego nation of Tonga early Saturday morning.

A magnitude 6.1 earthquake hit south east of Tonga at 1:19pm local time (2:19 NZT), the US Geological Survey has reported.

The quake was at a depth of 10.9 kilometres, 106 kilometres south east of Hihifo, Tonga, 2528km west of Auckland.

An aftershock of 5.7 magnitude followed two minutes later.

A meteorological officer on Niuatoputapu, one of the northern most islands of Tonga, said he had not felt the earthquake.

No shaking was felt further south by residents in the islands of Vava'u or on Tongatapu, the Matangi Tonga website reported.

The low-lying Tongan island island of Niuatoputapu was hit hard by a tsunami spawned by an undersea magnitude 8.1 earthquake in the Samoan islands back in 2009. That tsunami killed 10 people and destroyed 90% of the structures on the island, although no tsunami warning was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.


JAPAN: As I was updating the news out of Tonga, this story just broke out of Northeastern Japan.

An explosion was reported at the site of the Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Saturday.

An explosion at a nuclear power station tore down the walls of one building Saturday as smoke poured out and Japanese officials said they feared the reactor could melt down following the failure of its cooling system in a powerful earthquake and tsunami.

It was not clear if the damaged building housed the reactor. Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Daiichi plant, said four workers were injured but details were not immediately available.

Earlier, Japanese government officials said that radiation levels at that facility were at 1000 times the normal level.

Japan has issued a state of emergency for four other nuclear facilities as well. Shortly after it was learned of the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Tokyo Electric Power co warned that it had lost cooling ability for another reactor at their nearby Fukushima Daini site, prompting the evacuation of nearly 14,000 nearby residents.

3/12 UPDATE: Although the official death toll from Friday's quake tsunami has been tallied at 574, officials expect that number to rise. More 9,500 residents in the remote fishing village of Minamisanriku- to the north of Sendau- are unaccounted for in the aftermath of the disaster according to the Japanese Kyodo news agency. As of 2004, the town's population was an estimated 19,000.

3/12 INDONESIA: The Jakarta Post is reporting that Indonesia's Mount Karengateng on the island of Sulawsei has erupted, spewing lava and sending searing gas clouds down the mountainside. There have been no immediate reports of casualties or property damage there, although four people were killed when the volcano erupted last August. Closer to Indonesia's capital, the Mt. Merapi volcano on the densely populated island of Java unleashed a series of eruptions in October 2010, reportedly killing 122 people. Around the same time, the western coast of the earthquake prone island of Sumatra was rocked by a magnitude 7.7 earthquake, triggering a tsunami. It was estimated that 430 people were killed in between the tsunami and actual quake, with a number of people still missing.

Eastern Japan Hit By Magnitude 8.9 Quake, Tsunamis- Warnings Issued Throughout Pacific

The most powerful earthquake in Japan's recorded history triggered tsunamis reportedly as high as 25 feet that swept up cars, boats, houses and bridges while surging inland shortly after it struck on Friday afternoon.



The magnitude 8.9 quake- even more powerful than last year's Chilean earthquake- struck at around 2:45 PM local time on Friday in Japan. According to the USGS, the epicenter was some 80 miles to the east off the coast of Sendai and 230 miles from Tokyo. Te prefecture of Sendai was hardest hit.



Japanese oficials say that the death toll from the quake and tsunami is at 32 and expected to rise. Although no derailments were reported, Shinkansen (high speed rail) lines across the country were shut down as a precautionary measure. The expressways in and around Tokyo were shut down Friday afternoon as well.

Several fires had also flared up in the aftermath of the earthqauke, including an inferno at the Cosmo oil [Nikkei: 5007] refinery in Chiba and another fire in the turbine building of the Tohoku Electric Power co's [Nikkei: 9506] nuclear plant outside of Onagawa.

Meanwhile, authorities in Hawaii have begun preparing across the islands for an impact with tsunamis generated by the Sendai earthquake.

A tsunami warning was issued at 9:30 p.m. for Hawaii as a result of a 8.9-magnitude earthquake near the east coast of Honshu, Japan. The earthquake and resulting tsunami killed at least 32 people in Japan.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami watch at 7:56 p.m. after the quake struck 231 miles northeast of Tokyo.

Chip McCreary, director of the warning center, said the latest forecast models show "wave amplitudes of up to 2 meters (6 feet) beyond normal sea levels in Hawaii.

"What these waves look like is an elevation of sea level, where the sea level will rise above its normal level and stay high for 10 or 15 minutes before they recede," McCreary said, explaining the difference between tsunami and regular waves.

Because of the long length of tsunami waves, "they wrap around our islands very efficiently" so there is no point of impact that may see higher waves than other areas.

The waves are expected to impact in Hawaii at 3 AM Hawaian time (8AM Easter).
A Tsunami warning has also been issued for Taiwan, Russia, the Philippines, southern Alaska, British Columbia, the entire West Coast of the USA, Mexico as well as Central and South America and New Zealand.

3/11 UPDATE: Police in Northern Japan have discovered 200-300 bodies in the vicinity of Sendai- the capital of Myagi prefecture and closest major city to the epicenter of the earthquake.

3/11 UPDATE #2: Japanese authorities have issued an official emergency for the Tokyo Electric Power Co's [Nikkei: 9501]Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in the town of Okuma after problems were reported with the plant's cooing systems. The plant had automatically shut down after the earthquake and authorities have ordered the evacuation of more than 2000 in a 3km radius from the plant.

The tsunami impacted the California coast at 10 AM Pacific Time, sweeping at least one man out to sea and damaging boats and docks in coastal cities like Santa Cruz and Crescent City.

7.6 Earthquake Strikes Vanuatu, Tsunami Warning Issued

Authorities in the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu have warned residents to seek higher ground after a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck at 4:24 PM local time on Tuesday. Although there are no reports of damage in the capital city of Port Villa, local police warned residents to take refuge in the hills fearing that the tremors could spawn a sizable tsunami.

Residents say that there was considerable shaking for about 15 seconds, but no apparent signs of damage. A warning was issued by the NOAA's Pacific Tsunami warning center, although it was considered unlikely that any tsunami generated by the quake would reach the west coast. Vanuatu sits on top of an active seismic and volcanic reigon that's part of the 'Ring of Fire' circling the Pacific. The island chain lies between Australia's northeastern coast and Fiji.

Earlier this year, plans were made to evacuate nearly 3000 villagers from Torba Province in the northern part of the country after the Gaua volcano there bombarded nearby towns with ash, sulfur and molten lava. Like the Icelandic volcano earlier, ash spewing from the Gaua volcano threatened to play havoc with international air travel.

Multiple Offshore Earthquakes Rattle Southern Philippines

Six earthquakes struck in the Moro Gulf off the coast of the southern Philippine Island of Mindanao early Saturday local time. The USGS measured one of the quakes at magnitude 7.3, although local seismologists measured the quake at magnitude 6.9. Initial findings by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology also indicated that the quake could've come from as deep as 600 Km beneath the surface. This was followed up by a smaller aftershock- thought to be a magnitude 5.4 some 10 minutes later, which was in turn followed by a 7.4 quake just under an hour later. Seismologists believe that the epicenter for both the initial quakes and following aftershocks took place at least 500km under the surface.

Local officials were trying to determine if there were any damage or casualties. The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued no tsunami alerts for the Moro Gulf.

Most recently, a magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra some 1600 miles to the south and west of Mindanao. This wasn't even the strongest seismic event of the year in that part of Indonesia, as a magnitude 7.7 quake hit the island back in April.

"There's Lithium in Them Thar Hills!"- Pentagon Report: Afghanistan Could 'Hold $1 Trillion in Mineral Deposits'

Polish Forces on patrol in apparently lithium-rich Ghanzi province Afghanistan, 2009.

Senior U.S. military officials and the Pentagon report that they have discovered vast mineral deposits in southern Afghanistan that could be worth up to US$1 trillion, according to a New York Times article published Monday. According to the Times report, a Pentagon study indicates that Afghanistan could be the 'Saudi Arabia of Lithium'- a soft metal that's a key component in batteries for laptop computers and cell phones. Iron, copper, gold, silver and cobalt deposits have also reportedly been discovered in the remote, strife-torn country.

The report indicated that the USGS began aerial surveys of Afghanistan's minerals as far back as 2006 and cross referenced it with Russian reports gathered from Soviet mining experts from the USSR's occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s that American geologists came across in Kabul's Afghan Geological Survey library in 2004 after acting on a tip from local geologists who withheld the documents from the Taliban until 2001. The surveys initial findings were so promising that a more comprehensive aerial study using 3-D imaging equipment was conducted, providing a more detailed map of the country and it's resources. Although the findings were promising, they languished for two years until a Pentagon-sponsored local economic development program that was transferred from Iraq to Afghanistan rediscovered the reports.

Much of the Lithium is believed to be along dried salt lakes in Western Afghanistan and the deposits in the southern Ghanzi province may contain as much as Bolivia's current stockpiles- Bolivia is currently the world's #1 producer of lithium.

Presently Afghanistan's economy is largely based on opium harvesting and weapons trafficking. There previously had been no large-scale mining operations in Afghanistan until 1974 when Soviets attempted to build an open-pit copper mine in Aynak that would eventually fall into disrepair and be abandoned after the 1979 Soviet invasion. Another attempt was made to revive the mine in the 1990s, but that was abandoned during the Taliban's rise to power. In October 2009, the present Afghan government reached an agreement with Chinese interests to re-open the Aynak valley facility. Presently geologists are currently finishing up a series of technical studies in the more remote reigons of Afghanistan before the bidding process is opened up to international investors.

Magnitude 7.2 Temblor Jolts Southern California, Northern Mexico

Buildings in California swayed and roads south of the border buckled and cracked as a magnitude 7.2 earthquake shook the region on Easter Sunday.

The quake struck at approximately 3:41 PM Pacific Time with the epicenter thought to be some 30 miles southwest of the border town of Calexico, CA and was initially recorded by the USGS as magnitude 6.9. Officials in Calfornia are inspecting highways, bridges and power plants for damage and some roads in Imperial County are closed.

Reports from the Mexican side of the border indicate that many structures in Mexicali, the capital of Baja California, had collapsed or were severely damaged. There were at least two fatalities and the toll road linking Tijuana with Mexicali was shut down.

Left Coast Rebel is updating the situation on his blog as it develops.

Massive Magnitude 8.8 Earthquake and Aftershocks Rock Central Chile

(La Nacion- Argentina)

(La Nacion- Argentina)

(Reuters)

(Reuters)

Buildings were toppled while electricity and telephone lines were severed after a magnitude 8.8. earthquake struck central Chile early Saturday morning. The capital city of Santiago shook for over a minute and multiple aftershocks, some as strong as 6.9, struck the region. The USGS placed the epicenter of the quake about 70 miles outside of Concepcion, Chile's second largest city with a population of 200,000.

Early reports indicate that 47 people were killed, but that figure is expected to rise. Chilean President Michele Bachelet declared a "state of catastrophe" for the central region of the country and the Pacific Tsunami Center issued a warning for the coast of Chile and Peru. Authorities in Chile will have a better chance to assess the damage once daybreak comes.

UPDATE: The death toll has been revised to at least 214 and photographs illustrating the extent of the damage are beginning to circulate online. I found some images courtesey of the online edition of Argentina's La Nacion newspaper.

A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck a Saturday afternoon off the coast of Valparaiso, headquarters of the Chilean Navy and the nation's largest seaport. The port was ordered to shut down while it was the facilities were inspected for damage.

Tsunami warning have been issued for California, Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, Hawaii and British Columbia by NOAA's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.