"A great earthquake such as never had been"

Source: Associated Press

Date: July 1999

In the Book of Revelation, the author writes that the final conflict between good and evil before the millennial age will take place amid "a great earthquake such as never had been since men were on the Earth."

So what is the possibility that a major earthquake will strike the Israeli town of Megiddo, the biblical site for Armageddon? It's not just possible--"It's certain," said geophysicist Amos Nur. "We just don't know when."

In an article in Biblical Archaeology Review, Nur, a geophysics professor at Stanford University in California, and Hagai Ron, of the Geophysical Institute of Israel, trace the history of earthquakes in and around Megiddo.

In their article, Nur and Ron write that Megiddo, located in the middle of a strategic trade route between Syria and Egypt, was the site of several important battles. The scientists say that Megiddo, surrounded by active faults that crisscross northern Israel, was also repeatedly damaged by earthquakes.

The last major earthquake to hit Palestine occurred in 1927, when hundreds were killed by a magnitude 6.3 quake centered near Jericho.

Nur said it is impossible to predict when another major earthquake will erupt near Megiddo: It could be as soon as next week or it could be hundreds of years away. Nur compared conditions there to those found along the San Andreas fault in California.

15 reported dead after Mexico earthquake

Source: CNN

Date: October 1, 1999

An earthquake victim lies in the rubble after part of a building in Oaxaca City, Mexico, collapsed on Thursday

OAXACA, Mexico -- At least 15 people are dead and hundreds of buildings were damaged after Mexico was shaken by the most powerful earthquake it has experienced in 14 years.

The U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado said the 7.5 magnitude temblor was centered between the Pacific resorts of Huatulco and Puerto Escondido in Oaxaca state, some 280 miles (450 kilometers) south of Mexico City.

That would make it the most powerful Mexican quake since two huge temblors killed 10,000 people in 1985.

The force and unusual length of Thursday's quake -- 42 seconds -- terrified people hundreds of miles from its epicenter. It was felt as far south as Guatemala and very strongly to the north in Mexico City.

The quake, which struck at 11:31 a.m. (1631 GMT), was almost as strong as the one which struck Taiwan on Sept. 21, killing 2,100 people. "It was very intense. There was panic because we haven't ever felt anything of this magnitude," said Norma Alquitra, Puerto Escondido spokesperson.

Fifteen buildings were damaged and one person was killed by falling debris in the city of 18,000 people.

Victims killed by collapsing buildings

The Oaxaca governor's office reported 300 houses seriously damaged in the state and about 100 businesses damaged in Oaxaca city, most in the historical center.

Bricks and other debris lie on top of a row of parked cars in Mexico City following Thursday's earthquake

Twenty people in Oaxaca were hospitalized after suffering quake-related injuries.

In most of the affected areas of the country, roofs crumbled, roads were damaged and electrical power was cut off. There were scattered reports of cracked buildings in Puebla and Veracruz states, as well as Mexico City.

Local news media reported two other deaths which they blamed on panic related to the quake: a Mexico City man died of a heart attack and an elderly woman in the eastern state of Veracruz died after she raced from her house, slipped in the street and injured her head.

Mexico City Civil Defense officials said that while they were lucky this time, people still must be prepared to face the next one which might not be so tame.

1999: the year that seismic shifts killed 20,000

Source: Electronic Telegraph

Date: November 1999

FROM Colombia to India, Turkey to Taiwan, Mexico, and now California, 1999 has been the year of the earthquake. More than 20,000 people have died in six serious earthquakes this year, with many thousands more left injured and homeless.

The worst was in north-western Turkey two months ago, when more than 16,000 died in the densely populated area around Izmit. Seismologists said yesterday's quake in California's sparsely populated Mojave desert would have been "devastating" if the epicentre had been 100 miles to the west in Los Angeles.

Geologists know where earthquakes are likely to occur: the difficulty is predicting when. A spokesman for the California Institute of Technology said: "It's almost impossible to know when they will come. All we can do is take as many precautions as we can."

The cost of repairing the physical damage caused by quakes is enormous. Insurers estimate that last year was the most expensive since records began, with losses totalling $93 billion from all natural disasters. This year's figure could be higher.

The United Nations has declared the 1990s the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. Last Wednesday, more than 1,000 British schools took part in an "IDNDR day" to promote education about disasters.

257 KMPH Indian Cyclone and Tidal Waves Kill Thousands

Source: The Independant

Date: November 1, 1999

A huge relief operation was under way last night in the Indian state of Orissa where a 160 mph 'super-cyclone' has killed hundreds, possibly thousands, and left more than 1.5 million people homeless. The eastern state remains cut off and without power and telecommunications, but early reports suggest that the number of dead could exceed the 10,000 killed by a cyclone there in 1971.

The Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who held an emergency meeting of the cabinet yesterday, called the disaster a national calamity and released more than £60 million of immediate aid. Torrential rain and a series of 30ft tidal waves have left much of the coastal region submerged and in darkness. Bridges have been swept away and all major road, rail and air links have been cut.

The worst hit areas are thought to be the coastal districts of Kendrapada and Jagatsinghpur. The port of Paradip has also been partly destroyed. Its main shipping channel is blocked with sunken trawlers and 200,000 houses in the surrounding area have been flattened.

Water from the sea had come about 15 km (nine miles) inland from the coast near the port of Paradip and was three to five feet (1-1,5 meter) deep, after being lashed by winds of up to 260 km (160 miles) per hour.

50,000 feared dead in Venezuela

Source: BBC

Date: 22 December, 1999

The authorities in Venezuela say they now fear that up to 50,000 people may have been killed in the flooding and mudslides that have devastated the country - but they concede the true figure will never be known.

A senior civil defence official said many bodies remain buried in the mud that swept through entire coastal communities, in what is being described as Latin America's worst natural disaster this century.

Almost a week after the flooding and landslides, which wiped out a 100km (60-mile) stretch of the country's Caribbean coast, the authorities are still rescuing survivors.

Burying the dead

President Hugo Chavez is urging them to leave the worst-hit areas, to avoid the health risks caused by the destruction of water and sewage facilities. And, as rescuers continue to airlift survivors to safety, the authorities have begun burying the victims to prevent the spread of disease.

About 200,000 people have been left homeless and emergency shelters are now dangerously overcrowded.

The president has outlined plans for a huge rehabilitation effort to resettle the homeless. In the short-term, new homes will be built on military bases and farmland donated by landowners.

The Red Cross has also warned that, while there is enough food and medical supplies for the time being, the entire relief system is on the verge of collapse.

The minister in charge of the aid operation has said the aid already pledged is still not enough, as entire states will have to be re-built from scratch.

Bearing the brunt of the disaster was Vargas state, an area with a population of 350,000, an hour's drive from the capital, Caracas.

There, mudslides and raging rivers swept away shantytowns perched on steep slopes of the lush Avila mountain and left tall buildings marooned in a sea of rock-hard debris.

The head of the Civil Defence agency, Angel Rangel, has highlighted the case of Carmen de Uria, a community where only about 100 of the 3,000 homes were left standing.

By the cruellest of ironies, 2000 marks the end of the UN's international decade for natural disaster reduction

6.1 earthquake shakes Guam

Source: Yahoo!

Date: Dec 19, 1999

An earthquake with magnitude 6.1 shook the Pacific island of Guam early Sunday, at 8:54 a.m. (7:54 p.m. EST Saturday) and the epicenter was estimated to be 40 miles south-southwest of Guam, Reuters reported. Residents said some buildings in the U.S. territory swayed and many rushed out of their homes.

6.1 strong earthquake shakes New Zealand

Source: Yahoo!

Date: Tue Oct 26,1999

A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 shook many parts of New Zealand early Tuesday, but emergency services reported no serious damage because the temblor struck deep underground. The quake was centered near Taupo, 235 miles north of the capital, Wellington, according to the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences. The tremor, striking 100 miles underground, was felt throughout New Zealand's North Island and as far south as Christchurch, 210 miles south of Wellington, on the South Island. (AP)

6.1 strong tremor jolts Indonesia

Source: Yahoo!

Date: Dec 19, 1999

A strong earthquake with magnitude 6.1 jolted Indonesia's easternmost province of Irian Jaya on Sunday at 2:44 a.m. local time, Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said. The tremor was centered 64 miles northwest of Jayapura, the provincial capital. (AP)

6.4 Indonesian Earthquake Kills Four

Source: Irwan Firdaus, Associated Press

Date: Dec 22, 1999

KARYASARI, Indonesia - A strong earthquake shook the main Indonesian island of Java, killing at least four people and injuring 91 people, local officials said today. The magnitude 6.4 quake, which hit Tuesday night, damaged hundreds of houses in several villages in West Java province, they said.

"We have reports of four people dead. Many houses were badly damaged," said Muhtadi, who like many Indonesians uses one name. One person was killed in Karyasari village in Pagelaran district, 75 miles southwest of Jakarta. The hamlet of 4,000 people was one of the areas worst hit, with 100 houses collapsed or damaged.

Many villagers spent the day sifting through rubble looking for anything that could be salvaged. At least 91 people were reported injured. Many were hit by falling debris as they ran from their homes, Muhtadi said.

The area affected by Tuesday's quake lies near Krakatau, an offshore volcano in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra.

It blew up in 1883 in what was one of the biggest eruptions in recorded history. About 36,000 people died.

Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific ``Ring of Fire,'' a line of volcanically active areas stretching from the western coast of the Americas across to Japan, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

6.8 Strong quake rocks Philippines

Source: Yahoo!

Date: Dec 11, 1999

An earthquake with magnitude 6.8 jolted the main Philippine island of Luzon, including the country's capital, Manila, on Sunday at 2:03 a.m. and officials said one person died of heart attack and several were injured, Reuters reported. A number of buildings in Manila suffered minor damage, including cracks and shattered glass panels, police said. The quake knocked out power in parts of Manila and in several provinces of Luzon, the country's largest island with a population of about 40 million, about two-thirds of the national total, officials said. The quake was centred off the coast of Pangasinan province, about 180 km (112 miles) north of Manila.

6.9 quake rocks Alaskan coast

Source: UPI

Date: Dec 6, 1999

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.9 on the Richter scale rocked southwestern Alaska on Monday afternoon, causing power outages in the town of Kodiak and light damage in Old Harbor, said the West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning Center. A spokesman for the center said the quake struck at 2:13 p.m. local time (6:13 p.m. EST) and was centered 65 miles southwest of Kodiak. The center said an aftershock with a magnitude of 5.3 occurred 9 minutes later in the same location.

7.1 quake hits Pacific Island, generates tsunami

Source: AP

Date: Nov 26,1999

An ocean-centered earthquake sent a giant wave crashing over parts of Pentecost Island in the Pacific nation of Vanuatu on Saturday, killing at least five people, local authorities said. Another four people remained missing. The tsunami was generated by a 7.1-magnitude earthquake, said Leiwa Pakoa, a spokeswoman for Vanuatu's National Disaster Management Office, in the capital, Port Vila. The offshore quake occurred about 1:10 a.m. Saturday and was felt on much of the archipelago's more than 80 islands, but the worst affected island was Pentecost, which has a population of about 12,000

Afghan quake claims 50 lives

Source: Yahoo!

Date: Feb 12, 1999

The 5.5 strong earthquake that shook Kabul and an area west of the city Thursday night claims 50 lives and injured 200, Reuters said. The quake caused several mud-built dwellings in the capital to collapse and panic among some residents who thought they were being attacked by U.S. warplanes or missiles in Washington's search for Saudi militant Osama bin Laden, who is based in Afghanistan. The quake was felt as far away as the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Dark clouds: Global Warming

Source: Bob Herbert, N.Y. Times News Service

Date: December 1999

I remember my mother coming in from a storm one night many years ago and telling us, "You don't want to know what's going on out there." I think there's a tendency to take a similar approach to the undeniable warming of the earth's oceans and atmosphere, and the extreme weather events that scientists believe are associated with it. If you watch television or read the newspapers or step outside you might begin to think a plague of biblical proportions is under way.

Parts of North Carolina are still under water, and New Jersey is trying to recover from some of the worst flooding in its history. And New York City was brought to a virtual standstill when, as reported in The New York Times, "clouds like those that had merely puckered overhead all summer suddenly discharged up to four inches of rain in less than three hours."

Hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, torrential downpours and flooding, raging forest fires, deadly disease outbreaks--all descending on us in frighteningly rapid succession. You can be forgiven for not wanting to know what's going on out there.

The outbreak of St. Louis encephalitis, the potentially deadly viral disease that is spread by mosquitoes, was so unexpected in New York that doctors at first were unsure of what they were seeing. But a paper published in March 1998 in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society noted that climate warming and outbreaks of extreme weather could be expected to have serious implications for the spread of such diseases. The lead author of the paper was Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. We are learning that "climate change is not a gradual process," said Epstein.

Much more serious public health consequences from extreme weather events have been occurring in developing countries. The incredible rains and flooding that accompanied Hurricane Mitch, which killed more than 11,000 people in Central America last year, led to outbreaks of cholera, malaria, dengue fever and other diseases.

Deadly Tremor Strikes Turkey

Source: Dec. 6, 1999

Date: Earth Alert

One man died and six others were injured when a magnitude 5.5 earthquake struck eastern Turkey near the border of Georgia last Friday night. The fatality occurred in the city of Goresken.

More than 340 homes were damaged in a dozen communities by the shaking. A number of roads in rural areas also suffered damage.

Many frightened residents, fearful of returning to their homes, spent the night outdoors.

Turkey has been struggling to shelter hundreds of thousands of other survivors left homeless by two deadly earthquakes that struck in the northwest of the country during the past four months, killing at least 18,000 people.

Disaster toll for 1998 outdoes all of 1980's

Source: AP 

Date: Jan 1999

Storms, floods, droughts and fires have caused a record $89 billion in economic losses this year [1998] worldwide, more than was lost from weather-related disasters in all of the 1980s, according to a private study.

The report, released by the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research group, blamed human meddling for some of the disasters.

"More and more, there's a human fingerprint in natural disasters, in that we're making them more frequent and more intense and we're also … making them more destructive," said Seth Dunn, research associate and climate change expert at the institute.

This year's damage was far ahead of the $55 billion in losses for the entire decade of the 1980s. Even when adjusted for inflation, the 1980s losses, at $82.7 billion, still fall short of the first 11 months of this year.

In addition to the material losses, the disasters have killed an estimated 32,000 people and displaced 300 million--more than the population of the United States.

A combination of deforestation and climate change caused this year's most severe disasters, among them Hurricane Mitch, the flooding of China's Yangtze River and Bangladesh's most extensive flood of the century, according to the report.

Earthquake strikes southern Taiwan, more than 200 injured

Source: CNN

Date: October 22, 1999

At least 12 buildings have collapsed, including this agriculture school in Chiayi county

TAIPEI, Taiwan (CNN) -- A strong earthquake struck southern Taiwan on Friday, toppling several buidings, setting off fires, and sending a reported 200 people to hospitals.

The Central Weather Bureau said Friday's quake was unrelated to the massive 7.6-magnitude tremor that struck central Taiwan on September 21 and killed more than 2,300 people.

There were no immediate reports of deaths after the 6.4 magnitude quake, but newspapers said that at least 200 people were injured.

Several homes have also been damaged by the quake

Friday's quake struck at 10:19 a.m (0219 GMT) and its epicenter was 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) north of the city of Chiayi, the bureau said. About 80 aftershocks followed but only a few were strong enough to be felt, including 5.1- and 6-magnitude tremors.

Located along the earthquake-prone Pacific Rim and crisscrossed by 51 fault lines, Taiwan is rattled by scores of earthquakes each year, most harmless.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 6 can cause severe damage in a populated area.

Europe hit by 'white death'; Thousands trapped by worst snow in 40 years

Source: Yahoo!

Date: Feb 24, 1999

A new avalanche struck an Austrian ski resort Wednesday close to the village of Galtuer where at least 16 people died Tuesday, Reuters reported. The confirmed death toll across the continent from this month's freak snowfalls has risen to at least 49.

The latest avalanche was said to be about 218 yards (70 meter) wide and as much as 33 feet (10 meter) high. The death toll from the 16-foot (5 meter) wall of snow that smashed through Galtuer roughly 24 hours earlier rose to 16, including three children, with 26 people still missing. Some 20,000 people have been trapped in resorts across western Austria for up to a week by the worst snow in 40 years.

In Switzerland too, helicopters were racing to fly out thousands of stranded people including around 40,000 trapped in the eastern ski resorts of Davos and Klosters. The Swiss death toll from recent avalanches climbed to 10 as three more bodies were recovered.

In France, police said one of two hikers missing for four days in the Pyrenees had died in hospital a few hours after he and his partner were rescued.

In Germany, about 100 people were evacuated from a Bavarian ski resort after two avalanches came down.

Snow and floods submerged roads and railways in Romania, where over 50,000 acres of farmland near the Hungarian border were under water and 600 houses were damaged.

Extreme weather expected to continue

Source: UPI   

Date: March, 1999

Just when you thought the worst of the weather was over, scientists have some bad news: Even though the 1997-98 El Niño is finished, hurricanes, floods, ice storms and other extreme events are likely to continue. Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA, speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said: "We are seeing an increase in extremes. There's no sign that it's going to end." Extreme weather during the past El Niño has cost the world $89 billion and claimed 32,000 lives, according to a report from the Harvard Medical School presented at this meeting.

Future quake toll to worsen, experts say

Source: Robert Lee Hotz, Los Angeles Times

Date: December 1999

The death and devastation caused by major earthquakes around the world can only worsen in the years to come, experts say, because more and more people are living near faults. With the global population estimated to surpass 6 billion this year, there are fewer unpopulated quake-prone areas. With ever more people to accommodate, there is more multistory construction in vulnerable fault zones as well.

As a result, destructive earthquakes such as those of the past several weeks "are the wave of the future," said Caltech seismic expert Kerry Sieh. "There are 40 cities of a million or more people within 100 kilometers of a major plate boundary, and all those are good candidates for a large event [quake]."

Moreover, some experts suggest that in recent decades the world has actually experienced a lull in the most severe earthquakes--those of magnitude 8.0 or greater. If so, even more destructive temblors are to be expected when the lull ends.

The disaster in Taiwan was the most recent in a series of damaging urban earthquakes in just over a decade. Devastating tremors killed at least 16,000 people during a 7.4 earthquake in Turkey in August. At least 143 people died during a 5.9 temblor in Athens several weeks later. More than 6,400 people died in a 1995 quake in Kobe, Japan. The 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles and the 1989 Loma Prieta temblor near San Francisco were among the most costly natural disasters in U.S. history.

The economic consequences of another major earthquake in the heart of Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay Area would be catastrophic. A magnitude 7.5 earthquake could cause as much as $50 billion in damage in the Bay Area and up to $250 billion in damage in the Los Angeles Basin. In Southern California, there are at least six major fault zones that could theoretically cause an earthquake as powerful as that which rocked Turkey. "Let's learn from [Turkey's] lesson," said Lucille M. Jones, the U.S. Geological Survey scientist in charge of Southern California. "It is easy for us to discount it as happening in some Third World country, and that is a dangerous attitude."

Kazakhstan hit by 7.0 earthquake

Source: BBC

Date: Feb 28, 1999

A 7.0 strong earthquake has shaken Kazakhstan. Its epicentre was 210 kilometres from the city of Almaty in a sparsely populated area in the Tian Shan mountains near the border between Kyrgyzstan and China. There are no reports so far of any casualties or damage.

Large Earthquake Shakes Taiwan

Source: AP

Date: November 2, 1999

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- A large earthquake that shook Taiwan early today was strong enough to cause widespread damage -- but didn't because of its location, experts said.

The tremor measured 6.9 on the Richter scale, but no major building damage, injuries or deaths were reported. The earthquake caused a few brief power outages and other minor damage.

It was centered deep in the Pacific Ocean, 27 miles northeast of the city of Taitung in southeast Taiwan, said Lu Pei-ling, a seismologist with the Central Weather Bureau.

Still, the quake was close enough to the island to shake people awake at 1:53 a.m. local time and knock things off shelves in the capital, Taipei, 90 miles north of Taitung. In Taitung and the east coast city of Hualien further north, several people spent the night in tents, fearing another quake would flatten their homes.

Thousands of tremors and aftershocks have rattled Taiwan since a 7.6-magnitude quake hit the island on Sept. 21, killing more than 2,400 people and leaving thousands homeless. About eight of the tremors were of magnitudes between 6 and 6.8, the weather bureau has said.

Last month, a 6.4 magnitude quake injured dozens of people and damaged several buildings in the southern city of Chiayi.

Today, a 4.5-magnitude quake struck south of the central Taiwanese city of Taichung, close to the epicenter of the deadly Sept. 21 tremor, the bureau said. No damage or injuries were immediately reported.

More major earthquakes in 1999

Reuters

The world experienced more major earthquakes in 1999, and deaths caused by them were double the annual average, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. More than 22,000 people were killed by earthquakes last year, with 17,000 killed by the 7.4 earthquake that hit Izmit, Turkey, in August. An average 10,000 annual deaths occur worldwide from earthquakes. Fatalities totaled 8,928 in 1998, while 2,907 people were killed in 1997, the USGS said.

Much of world's population lives on shaky ground

Source: Yahoo!

Date: Dec 19, 1999

Much of the world's population lives on potentially shaky ground, scientists said after releasing the first map detailing the entire planet's earthquake hazard zones. Southern California, southeastern Hawaii, Turkey, Taiwan, Iceland and the India-China border are most likely to experience strong shaking in the future. The map, developed by 500 scientists over seven years, offers developing countries new information that can be used to update or establish building codes. Some nations in Africa, for example, never compiled such data.

"We can say today that as a result of this program, more than half the countries of the world have a new generation of seismic hazard maps," said Domenico Giardini of the Swiss Seismological Service in Zurich. As much as 15 percent of the planet's land is in zones of high or very high hazard, which is defined as a 10 percent chance or greater of violent shaking within the next 50 years, Shedlock said. Roughly 40 percent of the Earth's land is considered low hazard.

Odds raised for major San Francisco earthquake

Source: Reuters

Date: December 1999

The San Francisco area has a 70 percent chance of being hit by a major earthquake over the next 30 years, an almost inevitable disaster that will nevertheless catch millions of people unprepared, federal scientists said.

In a report issued to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the devastating 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said northern California was rife with major seismic faults long overdue for rupture. "We have earthquake probability distributed throughout the Bay Area," said USGS geologist David Schwartz, lead author of the new report. "There really is no escape."

Schwartz said that even if San Francisco continues to escape the inevitable "Big One" measuring 6.7 or higher, there is an 80 percent chance the Bay Area will be hit by one or more earthquakes measuring more than 6 during the next three decades.

Quake-prone Japan on edge for big one

Source: Reuters

Japan's Meteorological Agency estimates nearly 10 percent of the energy released worldwide by earthquakes each year is concentrated in and around the string of islands that make up the nation of Japan. Major cities such as Tokyo and most recently Kobe have been flattened this century in quakes that have killed tens of thousands.

Japan is literally crisscrossed with fault zones, rips in the Earth's surface caused by quake activity. The Fossa Magna fault runs roughly north to south through most of the country while another fault zone roughly runs east to west through the main islands of Honshu and Kyushu. Although the entire nation is vulnerable to quakes, the possibility of a quake that could wipe out the heavily populated Tokyo area causes the most anxiety.

Taiwan earthquake 'unusual', say scientists

Source: BBC

Date: 23rd September, 1999

Seismologists say that Taiwan's devastating earthquake which has killed thousands and rocked the capital Taipei was unusual, breaking a trend of quakes occurring hundreds of kilometres out at sea.

The tremor, which measured about 7.6 on the Richter scale, struck inland, close to the central city of Taichung. Like the recent quake which caused devastation across Turkey, it was also very near the Earth's surface.

Five aftershocks all measuring about six on the Richter scale occurred within 30 minutes of the initial earthquake. "From the previous history it looks as though there is the potential for other earthquakes on this size or even larger to occur over the next few months," said Chris Browitt.

"Back in 1935 there was a magnitude 7.1 which killed over 3,000 people in the west of Taiwan and it had an aftershock about three months later which killed just under 3,000 people."

Taiwan has Worst Earthquake in century

Source: BBC

Date: 23rd September 1999

Rescuers flee a damaged building as aftershocks strike

More than 48 hours after the quake struck, the official toll had risen to 2,042 dead and 6,537 injured. About 100,000 people have been left homeless. Some 2,600 people are still missing.

There have been more than 2,000 aftershocks since the initial earthquake, which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale, struck early on Tuesday local time. Some have measured as high as 6.8 and have been ranked as serious quakes in their own right. Worst-hit have been the central counties of Nantou and Taichung, where the earthquake had its epicentre and where there are few buildings still standing in some areas.

Tuesday's quake is thought to have been the strongest to hit the island this century. Every town on the island suffered damage with Pu-li reporting 98% structural damage. A clear idea of the scale of economic damage may not emerge for several days.

A BBC correspondent in Taiwan says the earthquake could disrupt the country's export industries and have a lasting impact on the economy.

Tidal wave's 'forgotten' victims

Source: CNN

DIVERS peered through the churning waters of the Sea of Marmara yesterday at hundreds of victims lying trapped inside blocks of flats and cafés that were sucked into the sea when the town was engulfed by a tidal wave.

Relatives stand at the water's edge, waiting for divers to emerge carrying some artifact that might provide a clue to where their missing relatives are. Fishing boats bumped across the choppy seas yesterday, salvaging what they could of these lost lives.

The waterfront at Golcuk has been chewed away along a 200-metre stretch. Residents point to where the coastline used to be; in some parts that is now 30 metres out to sea. The tops of palm trees and lampposts are visible just beneath the surface, giving an idea how deep the waters have closed in around this naval town.

There is now an underwater promenade. Cem Gurel, a councilor, rowed his boat over what used to be a popular walkway: "It's like our Atlantis. Part of our town has been taken by the sea, which will never give it back."

On Golcuk's new shoreline is a miserable collection of shoes, torn clothes, a wallet and handbags. Families pick their way through this debris, hoping to find some memento. Osman Altug, a 19-year-old student, examines a belt and throws it back. His father, mother and younger brother are missing. He was with friends in a flat three floors above his family's basement flat. "I remember the building shaking, everything moving and it was very dark. I was falling. I could hear my friend shouting and then I was aware that there was cold water rushing around me. I fell into it and put my hand to my face. It tasted of salt, of the sea. We pushed our way to where we could see some lights and ended up swimming out."

The five-storey block had slid into the sea. The first three floors were already submerged. The top two slipped under the waves seconds later, Mr Altug said. Some survivors were trapped for hours in buildings until rescuers reached them by boat.

Witnesses said the cafés and street traders were busy that night as thousands stayed out late to get a respite from the extreme heat last Tuesday. This part of Golcuk was built on reclaimed land, creating an artificial lagoon, and doubts have been expressed about the stability of the foundations of the flats and cafés on the waterfront.

Any investigation into that will have to wait until Golcuk recovers its dead. Government ministers will not say how many drowned, because they claim they do not know. Their estimate is 150 but residents put the figure nearer 500. Some bodies have washed up along the shoreline but most remain in the water.

Turkey asks for bulldozers, body bags after 'disaster of century'

Source: CNN

Date: August 24, 1999

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Turkish officials on Tuesday were calling it "the disaster of the century," as they struggle to bury the nation's earthquake dead, amid a shortage of tools for dealing with tragedy on a colossal scale.

Government officials broadcast appeals for bulldozers, body bags and tents, as they attempted to clear away the rubble from last week's 7.4-magnitude earthquake, which left more than 14,000 people dead and 200,000 homeless.

As many international rescue teams began to depart, amid dwindling hope of finding more survivors beneath the rubble, health specialists turned their attention to the concern over disease.

Even as new stories of survival emerged, however, Turkey put in a request that underscored the tragedy: The government has asked the United Nations to help it find 45,000 body bags, said Sergio Piazzi, of the U.N. Humanitarian Affairs office in Geneva.

"We are shifting from the search and rescue phase to the acute emergency phase," Piazzi said. "But still we have hope to find some individuals alive."

A military commander said troops were focusing on setting up tent cities with proper sanitation to guard against disease. Soldiers scattered tons of lime over wrecked buildings and around tents in Golcuk, close to the quake's epicenter.

"To a large extent, search and rescue operations have now finished," said Gen. Hayri Kivrikoglu.

Minister warns of acid rain

The onset of rain overnight made life more miserable for searchers and the 200,000 people left homeless in Turkey's densely populated northwest by the country's worst earthquake in 60 years. Turkey's health minister warned Monday of a new danger -- acid rain from skies polluted by emissions from a raging blaze at Turkey's largest refinery, in Izmit.

Health Minister Osman Durmus -- who has been blasted for insensitivity in the Turkish press -- said Monday that Golcuk may be evacuated due to the threat of acid rain. He said poisonous particles were emitted during the refinery fire, which lasted five days.

Two Volcanoes Explode in Ecuador

Source: Earth Alert

Date: Oct. 7, 1999

Two of Ecuador's 31 active volcanoes exploded late Tuesday after weeks of rumbling and shaking, blanketing the nearby capital city of Quito with volcanic ash.

Guagua Pichincha Volcano sent up a seven-mile-high cloud of gas, closing the capital city's airport and schools and forcing choking residents to wear face masks.

Earlier in the day, an explosion of gases was sent up from Tungurahua Volcano, 106 miles from Guagua Pichincha. Three mountain climbers and their guide sustained injuries when they were hit by an eruption of vapor and ash near the mountain's summit.

One person died and a number of others were injured on Wednesday as a result of the eruptions. The death and several of the injuries were caused when residents fell from their roofs as they were trying to remove the thick layer of ash.

Venezuelan flood toll rises to 10,000

Source: Reuters

Date: Dec 20, 1999

The death toll from mudslides and flash floods that swamped Venezuela's Caribbean coast last week rose to at least 10,000 on Monday, as hundreds of desperate survivors ransacked the main cargo port. The streets around the port teemed with people left behind by a massive air, land and sea evacuation of the coastal Vargas state which was devastated by torrential rains that lashed the South American country last week. "Definitely it won't be less than 10,000 dead," Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel told Reuters.

At a news conference later, Rangel said the death toll could reach 20,000, adding that "any figure we give is more in the realm of speculation than reality." The death toll would make it Venezuela's worst ever natural disaster. It would also surpass the 9,000 people killed in Central America by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Vietnam hit by heavy floods again; 13 killed

Source: Yahoo!

Date: Dec 4, 1999

Heavy floods caused by three days of heavy rain have killed 13 people in central Vietnam, a region still struggling to recover a month after being hit by the worst floods in a century, AP reported. A cold spell has dumped more than 25 inches of water in the region in a three-day period, flooding tens of thousands of homes and destroying thousands of acres of newly planted rice fields, officials said. This time, the rains are hitting farther south, from Thua Thien Hue province to Khanh Hoa province, an area home to 7.5 million people. Central Vietnam is one of the country's poorest regions.

Waiting for the earth to move

David Murphy and Peter Seidlitz

South China Morning Post

At 5:46 AM on the morning of January 17, 1995, a major earthquake struck the Japanese city of Kobe. Within hours 6,425 people were dead, with tens of thousands wounded.

The energy of eight Hiroshima bombs was released in the 20 seconds it took the earthquake to leave its devastating mark on the city. The physical toll was immense, with 240,932 houses completely or partially destroyed. Eighty percent of victims in the coastal city were crushed to death by falling debris.

In Japan every kid grows up with earthquake exercises. But the Kobe quake surprised the nation. The crisis managers were paralyzed, emergency vehicles and fire engines got stuck in huge traffic pile-ups. Cars escaping the nightmare jammed the roads all the way from Kobe to Osaka. Houses certified to withstand earthquakes folded, and the thick supporting pillars of major highways broke like matchsticks.

The bureaucrats recovered their senses after a few days. They started with planning. In the clearing of debris the Japanese are perfectionists. They even vacuum the autumn leaves from their parks and streets.

At the Tokyo Metropolitan Disaster Prevention Center, all sorts of disaster scenarios have now been stored on computers. The new disaster center is located in Tokyo's newest high-rise complex in the busy Shinjuku district. The staff there have coldly calculated the number of dead and wounded should another earthquake occur--this time under the city of Tokyo.

The last big quake to strike Tokyo was the massive Kanto earthquake which flattened the city in 1923. If a similar sized earthquake were to occur on a weekday at 6 PM with sunny weather and only mild winds, it would leave 156,431 dead, say the disaster specialists. In addition, 155,416 houses would be destroyed.

The room looks like a stage set for the next Bond movie. Cameras and Orwellian eyes have been installed in vantage points on buildings all over Tokyo to record the disaster. Today the pictures on the screen are of the traffic-thronged streets and the human sea moving in and out of subway stations. If an earthquake strikes, the monitors will show the damage of a burning and collapsing city, the biggest disaster movie ever made.

The fires which will break out after the next Tokyo quake have also been finely calculated: Twelve percent of Tokyo would be destroyed by fire and exactly 324,288 houses would collapse. Earth fault lines have been followed and put on computer maps to see where they match water and gas pipelines.

"The Kobe earthquake destroyed the myth that big cities are safe," says a worker at the disaster center. "Even modern cities can be severely destroyed. We should not be complacent."

Wipeout: Slide could swamp coasts

Source: The Financial Times

Geologists are anxiously monitoring a huge chunk of Hawaiian mountainside--12 miles long, 6 miles wide and 5.4 miles deep--that is creeping out to sea.

There's a remote risk that the Kilauea volcano, one of the most active in the world, will slump into the ocean, triggering a gigantic tsunami, a wave up to 990 feet (330 meter) high, which could devastate coastlines around the Pacific from California to Australia.

Although no tsunami on that scale has been recorded during historic times, there is scientific evidence for megaslumps and gigantic tsunamis in the Pacific in the past.

Sonar images of the ocean floor show landslides involving hundreds of square miles of rock. And geologists have found deposits of crushed coral, lumps of pumice and other wave-borne debris up to 1,000 feet (330 meter) above sea level in Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand.

Although the threat of a devastating tsunami is greatest in the Pacific, there may be a remote risk in other oceans, too. The island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean is a possible slumping site, and some geologists fear that the steep west side of La Palma in the Canary Isles could collapse into the Atlantic, generating a tsunami that would devastate the coast of Florida.

World earthquake deaths tripled during 1998

Source: Reuters    

Date: March, 1999

Almost 9,000 people were killed worldwide in earthquakes during 1998, triple the number that died the year before and a twentyfold increase from 1996, the U.S. government said. Despite the rise in deaths, the number of people killed by earthquakes last year was still under the long-term average of about 10,000 annually.

The agency's analysis showed that 8,928 people died from earthquakes around the globe in 1998, compared to 2,907 the previous year and just 419 people in 1996. Most of last year's deaths, 6,323 fatalities, occurred in two earthquakes that hit the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan in central Asia.

The U.S. Geological Survey detects between 18,000 and 20,000 earthquakes annually, equal to about 50 a day.

Izmit's dogs howled

By Robert Fisk, The Independent

At around 3 o'clock in the morning of Monday, August 16, Kanieh Topal woke in her three-story apartment block in the western suburbs of Izmit to hear a strange sound. "All the dogs were howling," she said.

Nature, it seems, was trying to warn the people of Izmit and Yalova and Golcuk and Istanbul and a thousand other towns and villages across 450 miles of Turkey. Twelve miles beneath them, the great tectonic plates of the north Anatolian rock fault had begun to move.

Exactly 24 hours after the dogs had given the people of Izmit their warning, the 12-mile deep fissure cracked, snapping open the earth's crust and visiting desolation on the sleeping humans above. In the space of 45 to 90 seconds, well over 100,000 apartment blocks, hotels, hospitals, shops, factories and private houses thundered to the ground in what one survivor described as an "atomic" explosion. As the sun dawned a dark crimson through the dust that hung for miles above northwestern Turkey, it was clear that its people had suffered the equivalent of a small-scale nuclear holocaust. Thousands died, and tens of thousands were injured.

But it was the construction companies and bribery of the late Seventies and early Eighties that had doomed the people. Every time neighbors pulled at shards of concrete, the material broke off in their hands. Concrete is made from sand and cement. The less cement and the more sand you use, the cheaper. In effect, many of the doomed were living in houses made from sand.

We call them "acts of God," but it is usually human actions that turn natural phenomena into disasters. Eighty percent of earthquake deaths are caused by collapsing buildings. More than half of all buildings in Turkey, according to the local Architects' Chamber, are built in violation of construction rules. Often they are put up without planning permission, with inspectors turning a blind eye; and politicians frequently grant amnesties for illegal buildings as elections approach.

This is just one example of a global problem. Most of the 100,000 people who died in an earthquake in Armenia in 1988 were in cheap concrete buildings. It was much the same in the Peru earthquake of 1970, which killed 60,000. And even in Japan, most of the buildings that collapsed in the 1995 Kobe earthquake, in which 5,000 died, were poor constructions rushed up after the Second World War.

"During this century more than 1.5 million people have lost their lives as a result of earthquakes, and the vast majority of this toll is because of building design," said Ed Booth of the engineers Ove Arup and Partners, after the Kobe disaster.

Poverty is also to blame. The Red Cross points out that the poor can often afford only badly built housing. An earthquake in Guatemala City, which killed 23,000 in 1976, became known as the "class quake" because of the accuracy with which it hit the poor.

"Floods," the Red Cross adds, "also target the poor." They are hit disproportionately, whether crowded on to low-lying sandbars off the Bangladesh coast or the steep slopes of Rio de Janeiro.

By the time Hurricane Mitch hit Central America last autumn it had been downgraded to a tropical storm. But it caused the worst disaster ever to hit the western hemisphere because its rains struck denuded hillsides, causing mudslides in which 10,000 died.

Reducing disasters means tackling poverty. In the words of Anders Wijkman, an expert on development and disasters who is now Sweden's ambassador to the United Nations: "Most disasters in the Third World are unsolved development problems."

Quake calls Turks to religion

By Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor

KORFEZ, TURKEY -- The Islamic call to prayer does not come from this Turkish mosque anymore: The minaret and its speakers toppled over in the earthquake. But the first Friday--the Muslim holy day--after the Aug. 17 earthquake saw swarms of new devotees to mosques across the hardest-hit area of northwest Turkey, an industrial heartland in a stridently secular state.

"The people are feeling different now," says the imam of this mosque about the apparent rediscovery of faith as Turks cope with the earthquake's aftermath. "They are trying to tell God they are sorry."

In this region of collapsed buildings, countless backhoes chew at rubble where more than 15,000 people died. The 200,000 left homeless camp in public parks and beside highways in makeshift tents. Amid the destruction, many blame Turkey's militantly secular policies and believe--with a fire and brimstone vigor--that this was divine retribution.

"In the Koran, the prophets say that if people do not accept believers, the last event will be a natural disaster, an apocalypse," says the imam.

For Turkey's establishment, secularism itself is an article of faith. "Secularism is the most sensitive aspect of the regime in Turkey--if it collapses, the whole regime collapses," Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has said. "It's the Achilles' heel."

But secularists are searching for answers, too, one quake survivor says. Though he has always prayed regularly, his wife never did--until the earthquake. "Right now, my wife is telling me: 'Please pray.'" The message is global, he says: "All around the world, people must take the message that they must leave the guns and the atom bombs. This is coming from the Koran and [the Islamic prophet] Muhammad, Moses, and Jesus, that all people should live as brothers."

2. A Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On

by Larry W. Poland, Ph.D. Source: "How to Prepare for the Coming Persecution."

Jesus predicted that the increase of earthquakes would be one of the beginning signs of the end of the age. He had it right.

It's not that earthquakes are a new phenomenon. Antioch, Syria, not far from the place where Jesus gave His quake prediction, lost a quarter of a million people to a major earthquake in AD 526. Central China lost 830,000 in 1556. But a listing of recorded history's greatest quakes indicates that 57 of the 79 most lethal ones have occurred in the last 83 years. If you want an idea of the trend, the number of people killed in earthquakes in the 70s and 80s was 1,148 percent the number killed in the 50s and 60s.

Jesus specifically said that these endtime earthquakes would occur in various places, or in His Words, "in diverse places." In geographical distribution, all but one of the 22 major quakes recorded prior to 1900 occurred in Eurasia. But the 57 biggies since the turn of the century have shaken up places as diverse as San Francisco and Tokyo, Guatemala and Algeria, China and Pakistan, Italy and Chile, Iran and El Salvador, the Soviet Union and Mexico.