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The injured were ferried to hospital with the help of relatives

A strong earthquake has struck eastern Turkey, killing at least 57 people, officials have said.

The 6.0-magnitude quake, centred on the village of Basyurt in Elazig province, struck at 0432 (0232 GMT). It has been followed by more than 40 aftershocks.

Officials said the nearby village of Okcular had been almost destroyed and several others badly damaged.

A number of people were trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings, many of which were built of mud-bricks.

“Villages consisting mainly of mud-brick houses have been damaged, but we have minimal damage such as cracks in buildings made of cement or stone,” Elazig Governor Muammer Erol told CNN Turk.

Everything has been knocked down – there is not a stone in place Yadin Apaydin Administrator for Yukari Kanatli.

At least 17 of the dead came from the hillside village of Okcular, where up to 30 houses collapsed, rescuers said.

“The village is totally flattened,” Okcular’s administrator, Hasan Demirdag, told NTV.

Television footage from Okcular showed rescue workers and soldiers digging among the rubble of collapsed buildings as villagers looked on.

Ali Riza Ferhat, a resident, said he had been asleep in his home when the earthquake struck.

“I tried to get out of the door but it wouldn’t open. I came out of the window and started helping my neighbours,” he told NTV. “We removed six bodies.”

The nearby villages of Yukari Kanatli, Kayalik, Gocmezler and Yukari Demirci were also badly damaged and each reported several deaths.
Map showing Turkey quake location

“Everything has been knocked down – there is not a stone in place,” Yadin Apaydin, the administrator for Yukari Kanatli, told CNN Turk.

At least 50 people have been taken to hospital, officials say. Some were reportedly hurt during the panic after the first earthquake, when they jumped from windows or balconies.

Residents of the affected villages have been warned not to return to damaged homes while the area continues to be hit by aftershocks, the strongest of which have so far measured 5.1 and 5.5.

The government disaster management centre and Turkish Red Crescent have set up tents to help survivors cope with the harsh winter weather, and are also distributing food and blankets.

Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek and three other ministers have travelled to the earthquake zone to provide assistance.

Elderly woman stands next to her collapsed home (8 March 2010)
We’ve experienced so many earthquakes in the last 20 years, yet no measures have been taken to strengthen the buildings
Volkan Durkal

In Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lamented the lack of earthquake-safe buildings and said he had ordered the start of a reconstruction project in the area.

“Mud-brick construction is undoubtedly a local tradition. But unfortunately, it has proved to have a heavy price,” he said.

A BBC News website reader who visited the village of Basyurt after the earthquake said its residents blamed the government for the destruction and loss of life.

“This is a seismic area. We’ve experienced so many earthquakes in the last 20 years, yet no measures have been taken to strengthen the buildings,” Volkan Durkal said.

“Most houses are not made with cement, they are not well-built and the people are not well-educated about what to do and where to take cover during an earthquake.”

Turkey is plagued by earthquakes – generally minor – because of its location on the North Anatolian fault line.

A 7.4-magnitude tremor which hit the western city of Izmit in August 1999 killed more than 17,000 people.

The BBC’s Jonathan Head in Istanbul says poor quality buildings were also blamed for the high death toll then and there is still concern in Turkey’s largest city, where seismologists predict a major earthquake will occur within the next few decades.

Mar 2, 7:10 AM (ET)

By MICHAEL WARREN and EVA VERGARA

PELLUHUE, Chile (AP) – The 40 retirees enjoying summer vacation at a seaside campground nestled under pine trees knew they had to move fast after Chile’s powerful earthquake struck.

They didn’t make it. The tsunami came in three waves, surging 200 meters (yards) into this Pacific Ocean resort town and dragging away the bus they’d piled into, hoping to get to high ground. Most of those inside were tourists, and only five of their bodies had been found by Monday, firefighters and witnesses said.

Pelluhue’s horror underscored the destruction wrought by Saturday’s pre-dawn 8.8-magnitude quake and the tsunami that ravaged communities along Chile’s south-central coast – those closest to the quake’s epicenter. Chile’s death toll reached 723, and most died in the wine-growing Maule region that includes Pelluhue.

Survivors here found about 20 bodies, and an estimated 300 homes were destroyed. Most residents were aware of the tsunami threat; street signs pointed to the nearest tsunami evacuation route. The ruins of homes, television sets, clothes, dishwaters and dead fish cover the town’s black sand beaches.

“We ran through the highest part of town, yelling, ‘Get out of your homes!’” said Claudio Escalona, 43, who fled his home near the campground with his wife and daughters, ages 4 and 6. “About 20 minutes later came three waves, two of them huge, about 6 meters (18 feet) each, and a third even bigger. That one went into everything.”

“You could hear the screams of children, women, everyone,” Escalona said. “There were the screams, and then a tremendous silence.”

Destruction is widespread and food scarce all along the coast – in towns like Talca and Cauquenes, Curico and San Javier. In Curanipe, the local church served as a morgue. In Cauquenes, people quickly buried their dead because the funeral home had no electricity.

President Michelle Bachelet said authorities were flying hundreds of tons of food, water and other basics into the region.

After the quake rocked the gritty port town of Talcahuano, Marioli Gatica and her extended family huddled in a circle on the floor of their seaside wooden home, listening to the radio by a lantern’s light.

They heard firefighters urging citizens to stay calm and stay inside. They heard nothing about a tsunami – until it slammed into their house with an unearthly roar. Gatica’s house exploded with water. The family was swept below the surface, swirling amid loose ship containers and other heavy debris that smashed buildings into oblivion all around them.

“We were sitting there one moment and the next I looked up into the water and saw cables and furniture floating,” Gatica said.

Two of the giant containers crushed Gatica’s home. A third grounded between the ocean and where she floated, keeping the retreating tsunami from dragging her and other relatives out to sea. Her 11-year-old daughter, Ninoska Elgueta, clung to a tree as the wave retreated.

All the family survived except Gatica’s 76-year-old mother, Nery Valdebenito, Gatica said. “I think my mother is trapped beneath” the house.

Firefighters with search dogs examined the ruins of her home. The group leader drew his finger across his neck: No one alive there.

Close to 80 percent of Talcahuano’s 180,000 people are homeless, with 10,000 homes uninhabitable and hundreds more destroyed, Mayor Gaston Saavedra said.

“The port is destroyed. The streets, collapsed. City buildings, destroyed,” Saavedra said.

In Concepcion, the biggest city near the epicenter, rescuers who had paused in a search for survivors resumed their hunt on Tuesday at a toppled 70-unit apartment building. Firefighters had pulled 25 survivors and nine bodies from the structure.

Chile’s defense minister has said the navy made a mistake by not immediately activating a tsunami warning. He said port captains who did call warnings in several coastal towns saved hundreds of lives.

In the village of Dichato, teenagers drinking on the beach were the first to shout the warning when they saw a horseshoe-shaped bay empty about an hour after the quake. They ran through the streets, screaming. Police joined them, using megaphones.

The water rose steadily, surging above the second floors of homes and lifting them off their foundations. Cars were stacked three high in the streets. Miles inland along a river valley, cows munched next to marooned boats, refrigerators, sofas and other debris.

“The maritime radio said there wouldn’t be a tsunami,” said Rogilio Reyes, who was warned off by the teenagers.

Dichato Mayor Eduardo Aguilera said 49 people were missing and 800 homes were destroyed. Some people fled to high ground, only to return too early and get caught by the tsunami, he said.

The World Health Organization said it expected the death toll to rise as communications improve. For survivors, it said access to health services will be a major challenge.

In Geneva, U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said Chile was seeking temporary bridges, field hospitals, satellite phones, electric generators, damage assessment teams, water purification systems, field kitchens and dialysis centers.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was bringing 20 satellite phones Tuesday as a first piece of a much larger U.S. aid package. Argentina was sending six aircraft carrying a field hospital, 55 doctors and water treatment plants – all of which should arrive by Tuesday night. Brazil was rushing in a field hospital and rescue teams.

Security remained a concern. Most markets in Concepcion were ransacked by looters and people desperate for food, water, toilet paper, gasoline and other essentials Sunday, prompting authorities to send troops and impose an overnight curfew. The interior ministry extended the city curfew to run from 8 p.m. Monday to noon Tuesday.

When a small convoy of armored vehicles drove along a downtown street, bystanders applauded, shouting: “Finally! Finally!”

—

Associated Press Writer Roberto Candia contributed to this story.

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By Alex Morales

March 1 (Bloomberg) — The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said.

Earthquakes can involve shifting hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet. This affects the Earth’s rotation, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses a computer model to calculate the effects.

“The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).”

The changes can be modeled, though they’re difficult to physically detect given their small size, Gross said. Some changes may be more obvious, and islands may have shifted, according to Andreas Rietbrock, a professor of Earth Sciences at the U.K.’s Liverpool University who has studied the area impacted, though not since the latest temblor.

Santa Maria Island off the coast near Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, may have been raised 2 meters (6 feet) as a result of the latest quake, Rietbrock said today in a telephone interview. He said the rocks there show evidence pointing to past earthquakes shifting the island upward in the past.

‘Ice-Skater Effect’

“It’s what we call the ice-skater effect,” David Kerridge, head of Earth hazards and systems at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, said today in a telephone interview. “As the ice skater puts when she’s going around in a circle, and she pulls her arms in, she gets faster and faster. It’s the same idea with the Earth going around if you change the distribution of mass, the rotation rate changes.”

Rietbrock said he hasn’t been able to get in touch with seismologists in Concepcion to discuss the quake, which registered 8.8 on the Richter scale.

“What definitely the earthquake has done is made the Earth ring like a bell,” Rietbrock said.

The magnitude 9.1 Sumatran in 2004 that generated an Indian Ocean tsunami shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the axis by about 2.3 milliarcseconds, Gross said.

The changes happen on the day and then carry on “forever,” Benjamin Fong Chao, dean of Earth Sciences of the National Central University in Taiwan, said in an e-mail.

“This small contribution is buried in larger changes due to other causes, such as atmospheric mass moving around on Earth,” Chao said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 1, 2010 14:11 EST

The devastating earthquake in Chile has triggered a tsunami which is radiating across the Pacific and has already caused serious damage on the islands said to have inspired Robinson Crusoe.

By David Barrett
Published: 1:37PM GMT 27 Feb 2010

Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet declares a ’state of catastrophe’ Photo: AP

An evacuation of coastal areas on Easter Island was under way as the tsunami was expected to make landfall there imminently.

An image generated by NOAA West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center shows the projected tsunami travel times following an earthquake that struck Chile Photo: REUTERS
Michelle Bachelet, the Chilean President, said an evacuation of coastal areas on Easter Island, the Chilean territory famous for its monumental statues, was under way as the tsunami was expected to make landfall there imminently.
British experts said a tsunami was now radiating from the epicentre towards Hawaii and other settlements on the Pacific Ring of Fire.

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The extent of the tsunami’s ferocity is not yet known, but it has already reached the southern Juan Fernandez Islands, about 400 miles off the coast of Chile, where it was reported to have caused “serious damage”.
The islands include one named after Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe’s protagonist, and another named after Alexander Selkirk, the Scottish sailor whose real life experiences as a castaway are said to have inspired the 1719 novel.
An alert was issued by the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre which predicted damage to the Hawaiian coast from 9pm GMT today.
“Urgent action should be taken to protect lives and property,” the centre said in a bulletin. “All shores are at risk no matter which direction they face.”
The centre had earlier issued a tsunami warning for Chile and Peru, and a tsunami watch for Ecuador, Colombia, Antarctica, all of Central America and French Polynesia.
New Zealand also issued a tsunami alert, warning of a wall of water up to 10 feet high, with landfall due there at just after 6pm GMT.
The New Zealand National Crisis Management Centre warning said the greatest wave heights were expected between six and 12 hours after the initial arrivals.
Dr Brian Baptie, the British Geological Survey’s Head of Seismology, said: “This is largest earthquake to strike central Chile since a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in 2001.
“A 1.3 metre tsunami wave was observed at Valparaiso, 200 kilometres north of the epicentre about 20 minutes after the earthquake.
“Tsunami waves in the deep ocean travel about the same speed as a jet plane and would take about 15 hours to reach Hawaii and about 20 hours to reach the other side of the Pacific.”
Dr David Rothery, from the Open University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said: “This morning’s magnitude 8.8 earthquake close to the Chilean coast has caused a tsunami that is now radiating away from the epicentre and travelling at several hundred kilometres per hour across the Pacific Ocean.
“The first waves are expected to Hawaii at 11:19 Hawaii Standard Time but are also travelling along the South America coast and will reach Colombia and Costa Rica after 1300 GMT.
He added: “A magnitude 8 quake is a rare event. On average there is only about one of these per year globally.”
Japan’s meteorological agency warned of a tsunami risk across large areas of the Pacific, as far away as the Antarctic, and in the Philippines officials warned low-lying coastal areas to prepare for a possible evacuation.

Hawaii blasts sirens, warns of possible tsunami
By JAYMES SONG, Associated Press Writer Jaymes Song, Associated Press Writer 54 mins ago

EWA BEACH, Hawaii – A tsunami triggered by the Chilean earthquake raced across the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, threatening Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast as well as hundreds of islands from the bottom of the planet to the top.

Sirens blared in Hawaii to alert residents to the impending waves, with authorities asking people living near the water to evacuate. On several South Pacific islands hit by a tsunami last fall, police evacuated tens of thousands of residents from the coast.

The first waves in Hawaii are expected to hit shortly after 11 a.m. Saturday (4 p.m. EST; 2100 GMT) and measure roughly 8 feet (2.5 meters) at Hilo. Most Pacific Rim nations however did not order evacuations, but advised people in low-lying areas to be on the lookout.

Unlike other tsunamis in recent years, emergency officials along the Pacific have hours to prepare and possibly evacuate residents.

“We’ve got a lot of things going for us,” said Charles McCreery, the director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, which issues warnings to almost every country around the Pacific Rim and to most of the Pacific island states. “We have a reasonable lead time.

“We should be able to alert everyone in harm’s way to move out of the evacuation zones,” he said.

In Hawaii, boats and people near the coast were being evacuated. Hilo International Airport, located along the coast, was closed. In Honolulu, residents lined up at supermarkets to stock up on water, canned food and batteries. Cars lined up 15 long at several gas stations.

“These are dangerous, dangerous events,” said John Cummings, spokesman for the Honolulu Emergency Management Department.

In Tonga, where nine people died in a Sept. 29 tsunami, police and defense forces began evacuating people from low-lying coastal areas as they warned residents that tsunami waves about three feet (one meter) high could wash ashore within three hours.

“I can hear the church bells ringing to alert the people,” National Disaster Office deputy director Mali’u Takai said. “We will move up to 50,000 people to the interior and away from the coasts.”

Waves 6 feet (1.8 meter) above normal hit near Concepcion, Chile shortly after the quake.

On the island of Robinson Crusoe, a huge wave from the tsunami covered half the village of San Juan Batista and three people were missing, said Ivan de la Maza, the superintendent of Chile’s principal mainland port, Valparaiso.

A helicopter and a Navy frigate were enroute to the island to assist in the search, he said.

A tsunami warning — the highest alert level — was also in effect for Guam, American Samoa, Samoa and dozens of other Pacific islands. An advisory — the lowest level — has been extended to include Oregon, Washington state, parts of Alaska, and coastal British Colombia.

British Columbia is hosting the Winter Olympic Games, but provincial officials said the venues are not under threat.

The White House is keeping close watch on the Chilean quake, which has raised the possibility of a tsunami striking Hawaii. Presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs said the U.S. stands ready to help the Chilean people “in this hour of need.”

American Samoa Lt. Gov. Aitofele Sunia activated emergency services and called on residents of shoreline villages to move to higher ground. Police in Samoa issued a nationwide alert to begin coastal evacuations. The tsunami is expected to reach the islands Saturday morning.

In French Polynesia, tsunami waves up to 6 feet (2 meters) high swept ashore, but no damage was immediately reported.

Meanwhile, disaster management officials in Fiji said they have been warned to expect waves of as high as 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) to hit the northern and eastern islands of the archipelago and the nearby Tonga islands.

A lower-grade tsunami advisory was in effect for the coast of California and an Alaskan coastal area from Kodiak to Attu islands. Tsunami Center officials said they did not expect the advisory would be upgraded to a warning.

Waves were likely to hit Asian, Australian and New Zealand shores within 24 hours of Saturday’s quake. A tsunami wave can travel at up to 600 mph, said Jenifer Rhoades, tsunami program manager at the National Weather Service in Washington, DC.

The sirens in Hawaii will also be sounded again three hours prior to the estimated arrival time.

McCreery said he didn’t know how big the waves will be, but expected them to be the largest to hit Hawaii since 1964.

“If you’re in an evacuation zone, police or civil defense volunteers would instruct you to evacuate, or instructions will come out over the radio and TV,” said Shelly Ichishita, spokeswoman for the state’s civil defense.

If coastal areas are evacuated, visitors in Waikiki would be moved to higher floors in their hotels, rather than moved out of the tourist district, which could cause gridlock.

Some Pacific nations in the warning area were heavily damaged by a tsunami last year.

On Sept. 29, a tsunami spawned by a magnitude-8.3 earthquake killed 34 people in American Samoa, 183 in Samoa and nine in Tonga. Scientists later said that wave was 46 feet (14 meters) high.

Past South American earthquakes have had deadly effects across the Pacific.

A tsunami after a magnitude-9.5 quake that struck Chile in 1960, the largest earthquake ever recorded, killed about 140 people in Japan, 61 in Hawaii and 32 in the Philippines.

That tsunami was about 3.3 to 13 feet (one to four meters) in height, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK quoted earthquake experts as saying the tsunami would likely be tens of centimeters (inches) high and reach Japan in about 22 hours.

A tsunami of 28 centimeters (11 inches) was recorded after a magnitude-8.4 earthquake near Chile in 2001.

The Meteorological Agency said it was still investigating the likelihood of a tsunami in Japan and did not issue a formal coastal warning.

Australia, meanwhile, was put on a tsunami watch.

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning Saturday night for a “potential tsunami threat” to New South Wales state, Queensland state, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island.

Any potential wave would not hit Australia until Sunday morning local time, it said.

New Zealand officials warned that “non-destructive” tsunami waves of less than three feet could hit the entire east coast of the country’s two main islands and its Chatham Islands territory, some 300 miles east of New Zealand.

The Philippine Institute of Vulcanology and Seismology issued a low-level alert saying people should await further notice of a possible tsunami. It did not recommend evacuations.

Seismologist Fumihiko Imamura, of Japan’s Tohoku University, told NHK that residents near ocean shores should not underestimate the power of a tsunami even though they may be generated by quakes on the other side of the ocean.

“There is the possibility that it could reach Japan without losing its strength,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Mark Niesse in Honolulu, Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Chris Havlik in Phoenix, Ray Lilley in Auckland, New Zealand, Eric Talmadge in Tokyo, Alan Clendenning in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Charmaine Noronha in Toronto contributed to this report.

Massive earthquake hits Chile, 122 dead
By Alonso Soto Alonso Soto 28 mins ago

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – A huge magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile early on Saturday, killing at least 122 people, knocking down homes and hospitals, and triggering a tsunami that rolled menacingly across the Pacific.

Buildings caught fire, major highway bridges collapsed and wide cracks opened up in streets. A 15-storey building collapsed in the city of Concepcion, near the epicenter, and overturned cars lay scattered below a fallen overpass in the capital.

Chilean President-elect Sebastian Pinera said at least 122 people had died in the quake, which struck at 3:34 a.m. (0634 GMT), sending many people rushing outside in their pajamas.

“Unfortunately, Chile is a country of catastrophes,” Pinera said, adding the quake dealt a heavy blow to the country’s roads, airports and ports.

He said the death toll could still rise, but an emergency official said it was unlikely to increase dramatically.

Tsunami warnings were posted around the Pacific, including the U.S. state of Hawaii, Japan and Russia.

Telephone and power lines were down across large swathes of central Chile, making it difficult to assess the full extent of the damage close to the epicenter.

The South American country is the world’s No. 1 copper producer, and the quake halted operations at two major mines.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake struck 70 miles northeast of Concepcion at a depth of 22 miles.

The capital Santiago, about 200 miles north of the epicenter, was also badly hit. The international airport was closed for at least 24 hours as the quake destroyed passenger walkways and shook glass out of doors and windows.

“I thought I’d blown a tire … but then I saw the highway moving like it was a piece of paper and I realized it was something much worse,” said one man who was forced to abandon his car on a wrecked highway overpass.

Chile’s Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, suspended operations at its El Teniente and Andina mines, but reported no major damage and said it expected the mines to be up and running in the “coming hours.”

Production was halted at the Los Bronces and El Soldado copper mines, owned by Anglo American Plc, but Chile’s biggest copper mine, Escondida, was operating normally.

Chile produces about 34 percent of world supply of copper, which is used in electronics, cars and refrigerators.

TSUNAMI

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said a huge wave hit the Juan Fernandez islands, and archipelago where Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was marooned in the 18th century inspiring the novel Robinson Crusoe.

“There was a series of waves that got bigger and bigger, which gave people time to save themselves,” pilot Fernando Avaria told TVN television by telephone from the main island. Three people were killed and four missing there, he said.

Bachelet said residents were evacuated from coastal areas of Chile’s remote Easter Island, a popular tourist destination in the Pacific famous for its towering Moai stone statues.

Unusually big waves battered Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, where residents were moved to higher ground as a precaution.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a Pacific-wide tsunami warning for the U.S. state of Hawaii and countries as far away as Japan, Russia, Philippines, Indonesia and the South Pacific. French Polynesia was also put on alert.

“Chile probably got the brunt force of the tsunami already. So probably the worst has already happened in Chile,” said Victor Sardina, geophysicist at the warning center.

“The tsunami was pretty big too. We reported some places around 8 feet. And it’s quite possible it would be higher in other areas,” he added.

An earthquake of magnitude 8 or over can cause “tremendous damage,” the USGS says. The January 12 quake that devastated Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince was measured as magnitude 7.0.

In 1960, a massive earthquake in Chile generated waves that reached the Philippines in about 24 hours.

FLAMES, LOOTING

Local television showed a building in flames in Concepcion, one of Chile’s largest cities with around 670,000 inhabitants. Some residents looted pharmacies and a collapsed grains silo, hauling off bags of wheat, television images showed.

Broken glass and chunks of concrete and brick were strewn across roads and several strong aftershocks rattled jittery residents in the hours after the initial quake.

In the moments after the quake, people streamed onto the streets of the Chilean capital hugging each other and crying.

“My house is completely destroyed, everything fell over … it has been totally destroyed. Me and my wife huddled in a corner and after hours they rescued us,” said one elderly man in central Santiago.

There were blackouts in parts of Santiago. Emergency officials said buildings in the historic quarters of two southern cities, mainly made of adobe, had been badly damaged and local radio said three hospitals had partially collapsed.

In 1960, Chile was hit by the world’s biggest earthquake since records dating back to 1900. The 9.5 magnitude quake devastated the south-central city of Valdivia, killing 1,655 people and sending a tsunami that battered Easter Island 2,300 miles off Chile’s Pacific coast and continued as far as Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.

Saturday’s quake shook buildings as far away as Argentina’s Andean provinces of Mendoza and San Juan. A series of strong aftershocks rocked Chile’s coastal region from Valdivia in the south to Valparaiso, about 500 miles to the north.

The United Nations and the White House said they were closely monitoring the situation in Chile and the potential threat of tsunamis in the Pacific.

“We stand ready to help (Chile) in this hour of need,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

A State Department official said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was being kept apprised of the situation in Chile, which she is due to visit on Tuesday on a Latin American tour.

(Additional reporting by Helen Popper, Kevin Gray and Guido Nejamkis in Buenos Aires, editing by Anthony Boadle)

By KIRK JOHNSON
Published: January 31, 2010

DENVER — In the last two weeks, more than 100 mostly tiny earthquakes a day, on average, have rattled a remote area of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, putting scientists who monitor the park’s strange and volatile geology on alert.
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Researchers say that for now, the earthquake cluster, or swarm — the second-largest ever recorded in the park — is more a cause for curiosity than alarm. The quake zone, about 10 miles northwest of the Old Faithful geyser, has shown little indication, they said, of building toward a larger event, like a volcanic eruption of the type that last ravaged the Yellowstone region tens of thousands of years ago.

The area is far from any road or community, and the park is relatively empty in winter. Swarms of small quakes, including a significant swarm last year, are relatively common.

But at a time when the disastrous earthquake in Haiti on Jan. 12 has refocused global attention on the earth’s immense store of tectonic energy, scientists say that the Yellowstone swarm, if only because of its volume, bears close observation: as of Sunday, there had been 1,608 quakes since Jan. 17.

“We’re not seeing a pattern that is really discernible yet,” said Henry Heasler, a coordinating scientist for the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, a joint venture of Yellowstone, the United States Geological Survey and the University of Utah. Dr. Heasler said plans were in place to intensify observations in case the swarm continued for a long time or got larger. “We’re ready to ramp up,” he said, including using flights to monitor the area.

Researchers at the University of Utah’s Seismograph Stations who have tracked Yellowstone swarms said they thought it was coincidental that another big swarm of more 1,000 quakes had struck the park just over a year ago. At the time, it was the second-biggest cluster recorded there. The largest swarm was in 1985, when 3,000 earthquakes struck over three months.

Last year’s swarm, beneath northern Yellowstone Lake, had a specific track of alignment, with the earthquakes moving north and growing shallower from the initial quake area, said Robert B. Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah and a science coordinator at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

The mostly smaller quakes in the current swarm, he said, are more like a cloud, with no directional pattern, similar to what scientists saw in a big swarm at the park in 1999. “We think the crust beneath Yellowstone is highly fractured already, so we’re getting stress release in these earthquakes — a displacement of millimeters,” Dr. Smith said.

Dr. Heasler said researchers use the park’s geologic wonders, like Old Faithful — which spews steam and water on schedule, plus or minus 10 minutes — as indicators of the effects of quake activity. He and his team look for changes in water temperature, or mud plumes in hot pools that otherwise run clear. This swarm, he said, seems not to have affected any of those natural monitors, though he emphasized that analysis was continuing.

Attention to earthquakes in general has soared since the quake in Haiti. For instance, visits to the United States Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazards Program Web site increased fivefold after the quake, to more than a million a day, compared with the numbers a month earlier, an agency spokeswoman said.

Dr. Heasler said park visitors had been encouraged to help with the research by telling park officials if they felt the ground shake.

Quake hits off Cayman Islands
January 19, 2010 — Updated 1813 GMT (0213 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* No immediate reports of injuries after earthquake off Cayman Islands
* “There was quite a bit of shaking,” says shop manager in George Town, Cayman Islands
* U.K. territory in Caribbean about 600 miles west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti

RELATED TOPICS

* Earthquakes
* Cayman Islands
* Caribbean

(CNN) — A 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck Tuesday off the Cayman Islands, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The 6.2-mile deep quake hit at 9:23 a.m. ET, 40 miles from George Town, Cayman Islands, the USGS reported. George Town, the capital, is on the western shore of Grand Cayman Island.

There were no immediate reports of injuries in the three-island chain in the Caribbean.

The British territory of the Cayman Islands is about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which was devastated last week by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

Tuesday’s quake struck about 32 miles (52 kilometers) east-southeast of Bodden Town in the center of the southern coast of Grand Cayman Island.

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It caused shaking at the Pedro St. James National Historic Site, about a 10-minute drive from Bodden Town, said Sonya Hydes, the gift shop manager.

“There was quite a bit of shaking,” she said.

Hydes said she called her husband after the shaking stopped to see if their house was affected. He told her that he felt the quake but that it did not damage their house.

There are reports that the quake toppled power lines in Bodden Town, said Kafara Augustine, a news producer for Cayman 27.

Augustine said she felt the shaking from within her office in central George Town. She and her colleagues quickly evacuated the building, seeking safety in the streets, she said. The two-story building did not suffer any damage and from what she could see, everything else seemed unharmed during the quake, she said.

The quake startled Davy Ebanks, general manager of the North Sound Club, a golf course on the Seven Mile Beach strip of western Grand Cayman Island. He said he was reading about the earthquake in Haiti on the Internet when he suddenly felt shaking.

“I just bolted,” he said. “It was rocking and rolling pretty good.”

The trembling knocked some picture frames off balance and sent some mannequins tumbling in the pro shop, but otherwise did little damage at the club, he said.

About 215 miles (346 kilometers) from the temblor in Cienfuegos, Cuba — a city on the southern coast of the communist island — residents said they felt nothing.

The Caymans are about 167 (268 kilometers) miles northwest of Jamaica and about 140 miles (240 kilometers) south of Cuba, according to the CIA World Fact Book.

Reuters – A major earthquake hit the impoverished country of Haiti on Tuesday, collapsing buildings in the capital …

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – A major earthquake hit impoverished Haiti on Tuesday, toppling buildings in the capital Port-au-Prince, burying residents in rubble and causing many deaths and injuries, witnesses in the city said.

The magnitude 7.0 quake, whose epicenter was inland and only 10 miles from Port-au-Prince, sent panic-stricken people screaming into the streets of the city, as a cloud of dust and smoke from falling buildings rose into the sky.

As darkness fell amid scenes of chaos and anguished cries from victims, residents desperately tried to dig out survivors or searched for missing relatives in debris-strewn streets.

The presidential palace was among the buildings damaged, Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Raymond Alcide Joseph, told CNN.

“My country is facing a major catastrophe,” he said.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has a history of destructive natural disasters. Some 9,000 U.N. police and troops are stationed there to maintain order.

The major quake, followed by several aftershocks, prompted a tsunami watch for parts the Caribbean but this was later canceled.

“Everything started shaking, people were screaming, houses started collapsing … it’s total chaos,” Reuters reporter Joseph Guyler Delva said in Port-au-Prince.

“I saw people under the rubble, and people killed,” he added, saying he had witnessed dozens of casualties.

U.S. President Barack Obama said his “thoughts and prayers” were with the people of Haiti and pledged to come to their aid. The Obama administration said the State Department, USAID and U.S. military were working to coordinate assistance.

The United States “will be providing both civilian and military disaster relief and humanitarian assistance,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

A local employee for the charity Food for the Poor reported seeing a five-story building collapse in Port-au-Prince, spokeswoman Kathy Skipper told Reuters.

Another Food for the Poor employee said there were more houses destroyed than standing in Delmas Road, a major thoroughfare in the city.

“Within a minute of the quake … soil, dust and smoke rose up over the city, a blanket that completely covered the city and obscured it for about 12 minutes until the atmospheric conditions dissipated the dust,” Mike Godfrey, who works for USAID, told CNN from the city.

Experts said the quake’s epicenter was very shallow at a depth of only 6.2 miles, which was likely to have magnified the destruction.

PEOPLE SCREAMED ‘JESUS, JESUS’

Speaking to CNN from Port-au-Prince, Ian Rogers of the charity Save the Children said he could hear cries of anguish and mourning rising up from around the city in the darkness.

Homes and buildings built on hillsides had come crashing down along with earth and rubble.

“All the roads currently are blocked,” Rogers said.

“People were screaming ‘Jesus, Jesus’ and running in all directions,” Delva said.

The Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, where many foreigners stay, suffered at least some minor damage.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091217-west-mata-submarine-volcano-video.html

Spectacular Sea Eruption Filmed — Deepest Ever The video player is loading. If it does not appear shortly, you may need to enable JavaScript in your Web browser and/or get the latest Flash Player plug-in to view it. Email to a Friend View All News Videos What’s This? SHARE Digg StumbleUpon Reddit RELATED * VIDEO: Deep-Sea Eruption, Odd Animals Seen * Underwater Pictures December 17, 2009—See the recent “underwater Fourth of July” scientists believe is the deepest volcanic eruption ever seen—with three-foot-wide lava bubbles and flows creeping over the seafloor. © 2009 National Geographic; Video courtesy National Science Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Unedited Transcript Researchers witnessed a spectacular, fiery underwater volcano explosion, and captured it on video. Its believed to be the deepest ocean volcano eruption ever recorded. The undersea Pacific Ocean explosions in May of this year were recorded using a remote operating vehicle. Under the tone of the vehicle motors, recorded by a hydrophone, you can hear the muffled sounds of the explosions, still audible under 4,000 feet of ocean water. An expedition team, which included researchers from the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was conducting observations in an area of the Pacific bounded by the island nations of Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. The eruption was southeast of Samoa. One of the lead scientists called it, an underwater Fourth of July. Images show large molten lava bubbles about three feet across; glowing red vents ejecting lava into the sea, and lava flows across the seafloor. This West Mata volcano stands more than a mile high off the ocean floor. Its eruptive area is about the length of a football field. It is producing Boninite lavas, believed to be among the hottest erupting on Earth in modern times. Researchers believe they have a unique chance to study magma formation and how the Earth recycles material where tectonic plates slide against each other. A microbiologist on the team found diverse microbes in the extreme conditions, and they observed a small species of shrimp thriving. Its believed to be the same shrimp species found at eruptive sites more than 3,000 miles away. Mission scientists believe 80 percent of eruptive activity on Earth occurs in the ocean, and most volcanoes are in the deep sea. But until this discovery, NOAA and the National Science Foundation had sponsored submarine volcano research for 25 years, without observing a deep-ocean eruption like this one, which is now recorded for all of us to see.