Tag Archives: Tsunami

Washington state ‘grossly’ unprepared for major quake: report

Skyline of Seattle Washington

(Reuters) – Washington state is grossly unprepared for a large earthquake and tsunami that may strike in the coming decades, putting it at risk for a humanitarian disaster, the Seattle Times reported on Sunday, citing a draft government report.

Anticipating a poor response to such a disaster, the state’s emergency managers will begin asking residents to stock enough food and other supplies to survive on their own for two weeks, the newspaper said.

The Pacific Northwest region was once thought to be a low risk for a massive earthquake, compared with its coastal neighbor California.

Researchers, however, have come to believe that an 8.0 to 9.0 magnitude temblor has shaken Oregon and Washington every 230 years or so. The last struck about 315 years ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, so one is overdue.

To prepare for that possibility, Washington officials organized a four-day exercise called “Cascadia Rising” in June, and the results were laid out in a draft report, the Seattle Times reported.

“The state’s current mindset and approach to disaster response is not suitable to a catastrophic scale incident,” the assessment says, according to a copy the newspaper published online.

The draft report recommends expanding the emergency authority of Washington’s governor and putting in place plans for mass sheltering and feeding, among other steps.

The state Emergency Management Division wants to spend $750,000 a year urging people to have emergency kits that would last up to two weeks, the Seattle Times said.

On the Olympic Peninsula, which is vulnerable to being cut off if roads and bridges are damaged, people may be on their own for twice that long, an official told the newspaper.

“What you have on hand when this occurs is how you’re going to survive,” said Clallam County emergency coordinator Penny Linterman.

(Reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Magnitude 6.4 quake strikes Ecuador’s northwest coast, no deaths reported

QUITO (Reuters) – A shallow earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 struck Ecuador’s northwest coast on Sunday, in the region of April’s deadly quake, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

The quake was centered near the town of Esmeraldas, northwest of the capital Quito, at a depth of about 35 km (22 miles), the USGS said.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue a tsunami warning immediately after the quake.

President Rafael Correa said authorities had not received any reports of casualties or material damage.

“We must remain calm,” Correa said during a telephone call to a state-run television station.

“These are normal replicas, though the fear that people feel is understandable – especially the victims of the April 16 quake.”

The tremor was felt in Quito and the coastal business hub of Guayaquil, with residents streaming out of buildings into the streets, according to witnesses.

Calm quickly returned to both cities after residents saw that no damage had been done.

The coastal region has been hit by a series of quakes since the April 7.8 tremor that killed more than 650 people, the nation’s strongest quake in decades.

In May, two successive quakes measuring 6.7 and 6.8 in magnitude killed one person and caused minor damage.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia, Michael Perry and Mary Milliken Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Ryan Woo)

‘Hearts are in pieces’ five years after tsunami hits Japan

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan (Reuters) – Japan on Friday mourned the thousands who lost their lives in a massive earthquake and tsunami five years ago that turned towns to matchwood and triggered the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

The nine-magnitude quake struck offshore on a chilly Friday, sparking huge black waves along a vast swathe of coastline and killing nearly 20,000 people.

The tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, where meltdowns in three reactors spewed radiation over a wide area of the countryside, contaminating water, food and air.

Naoto Kan, the prime minister at the time, has said he feared he would have to evacuate the Japanese capital Tokyo and that Japan’s very existence could have been in peril.

More than 160,000 people were evacuated from nearby towns and some 10 percent still live in temporary housing across Fukushima prefecture. Most have settled outside their hometowns and have begun new lives.

Some areas remain no-go zones due to high radiation. Demonstrators in front of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) bore signs saying, “Give me back my hometown!”

At cemeteries along the devastated coastline, in front of buildings hollowed out by the wave, and on beaches, families gathered to offer flowers and incense, bowing their heads and wiping away tears.

Flags at central government buildings were at half-mast, some draped in black.

In coastal Rikuzentakata, which was flattened by a wave as much as 56 feet high and lost seven percent of its population along with its entire downtown, pain remains strong.

“The reality is that we still feel the scars here, and there are still many struggling to restart their lives,” said 65-year-old Yashichi Yanashita, a retired city hall official. The four-story city hall was inundated by the wave.

A MOMENT OF SILENCE

At 2:46 p.m., the moment the quake hit, bells rang out in downtown Tokyo and people around the nation bowed their heads in a moment of silence. All the trains on Tokyo’s vast underground paused for a minute.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Emperor Akihito bowed in front of a stage laden with white and yellow flowers in a Tokyo ceremony attended by 1,200 people, including survivors from the stricken area.

“Father, that day, I called your mobile phone so many times, but you didn’t answer … ” said Masakiyo Kimura, who lost his parents to the wave in the city of Onagawa.

“Our house was completely torn from its foundation. Nothing remained except for the pair of matching teacups father and mother used, lying on top of each other.”

Billions of dollars in government spending have helped stricken communities rise from the ruins, including elevating the earth to protect them from future waves and cleaning radiation-contaminated land, but much remains to be done for thousands still languishing in barracks-like temporary housing.

“I get the feeling that the number of people who don’t know what to do, who aren’t even trying, is increasing,” said Kazuo Sato, a former fisherman from Rikuzentakata. “Their hearts are in pieces.”

RECONSTRUCTION CONTINUES

Government spending on reconstruction is set to dip from the start of the new fiscal year in April. But Abe pledged continued support.

“Many people are still leading uncomfortable lives in the affected areas. There are many who cannot return to their beloved homes because of the accident at the nuclear power plant,” he said at the ceremony.

“We commit ourselves to … providing care for their minds and bodies, forming new local communities and supporting industrial development of the affected areas.”

Full recovery will take still longer.

“Infrastructure is recovering, hearts are not. I thought time would take care of things,” said Eiki Kumagai, a Rikuzentakata volunteer fireman who lost 51 colleagues, many killed as they guided others to safety.

“I keep seeing the faces of those who died… There’s so much regret, I can’t express it.”

(Reporting by Elaine Lies, Editing by Linda Sieg, Nick Macfie and)

Fukushima’s ground zero: No place for man or robot

(Reuters) – The robots sent in to find highly radioactive fuel at Fukushima’s nuclear reactors have “died”; a subterranean “ice wall” around the crippled plant meant to stop groundwater from becoming contaminated has yet to be finished. And authorities still don’t know how to dispose of highly radioactive water stored in an ever mounting number of tanks around the site.

Five years ago, one of the worst earthquakes in history triggered a 10-metre high tsunami that crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station causing multiple meltdowns. Nearly 19,000 people were killed or left missing and 160,000 lost their homes and livelihoods.

Today, the radiation at the Fukushima plant is still so powerful it has proven impossible to get into its bowels to find and remove the extremely dangerous blobs of melted fuel rods.

The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), has made some progress, such as removing hundreds of spent fuel roads in one damaged building. But the technology needed to establish the location of the melted fuel rods in the other three reactors at the plant has not been developed.

“It is extremely difficult to access the inside of the nuclear plant,” Naohiro Masuda, Tepco’s head of decommissioning said in an interview. “The biggest obstacle is the radiation.”

The fuel rods melted through their containment vessels in the reactors, and no one knows exactly where they are now. This part of the plant is so dangerous to humans, Tepco has been developing robots, which can swim under water and negotiate obstacles in damaged tunnels and piping to search for the melted fuel rods.

But as soon as they get close to the reactors, the radiation destroys their wiring and renders them useless, causing long delays, Masuda said.

Each robot has to be custom-built for each building.“It takes two years to develop a single-function robot,” Masuda said.

IRRADIATED WATER

Tepco, which was fiercely criticized for its handling of the disaster, says conditions at the Fukushima power station, site of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in Ukraine 30 years ago, have improved dramatically. Radiation levels in many places at the site are now as low as those in Tokyo.

More than 8,000 workers are at the plant at any one time, according to officials on a recent tour. Traffic is constant as they spread across the site, removing debris, building storage tanks, laying piping and preparing to dismantle parts of the plant.

Much of the work involves pumping a steady torrent of water into the wrecked and highly radiated reactors to cool them down. Afterward, the radiated water is then pumped out of the plant and stored in tanks that are proliferating around the site.

What to do with the nearly million tonnes of radioactive water is one of the biggest challenges, said Akira Ono, the site manager. Ono said he is “deeply worried” the storage tanks will leak radioactive water in the sea – as they have done several times before – prompting strong criticism for the government.

The utility has so far failed to get the backing of local fishermen to release water it has treated into the ocean.

Ono estimates that Tepco has completed around 10 percent of the work to clear the site up – the decommissioning process could take 30 to 40 years. But until the company locates the fuel, it won’t be able to assess progress and final costs, experts say.

The much touted use of X-ray like muon rays has yielded little information about the location of the melted fuel and the last robot inserted into one of the reactors sent only grainy images before breaking down.

ICE WALL

Tepco is building the world’s biggest ice wall to keep  groundwater from flowing into the basements of the damaged reactors and getting contaminated.

First suggested in 2013 and strongly backed by the government, the wall was completed in February, after months of delays and questions surrounding its effectiveness. Later this year, Tepco plans to pump water into the wall – which looks a bit like the piping behind a refrigerator – to start the freezing process.

Stopping the ground water intrusion into the plant is critical, said Arnie Gunderson, a former nuclear engineer.

“The reactors continue to bleed radiation into the ground water and thence into the Pacific Ocean,” Gunderson said. “When Tepco finally stops the groundwater, that will be the end of the beginning.”

While he would not rule out the possibility that small amounts of radiation are reaching the ocean, Masuda, the head of decommissioning, said the leaks have ended after the company built a wall along the shoreline near the reactors whose depth goes to below the seabed.

“I am not about to say that it is absolutely zero, but because of this wall the amount of release has dramatically dropped,” he said.

(Story corrects spelling of names in fifth paragraph to …Naohiro… not Naohero, in twelfth paragraph to Akira… not Akiro, in fourth-last paragraph to Arnie… not Artie, adds dropped word in first paragraph.)

(Reporting by Aaron Sheldrick and Minami Funakoshi Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Pain lingers five years later as tsunami-hit Japan town rises from ruins

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan (Reuters) – Time has done little to help Japanese volunteer fireman Eiki Kumagai with memories of March 11, 2011, when he clung to some steps as a huge black tsunami surged through his town, washing away people he knew as they cried for help.

“We were recovering bodies,” the 48-year-old recalls. “This is a small town, we knew them all. Women, children, old people. There were so many, we had two layers.”

Five years after Rikuzentakata lost 7 percent of its population and its entire downtown to the 49-foot wave touched off by a magnitude 9 earthquake, a huge construction project has raised its center from future waves.

But while the physical landscape has been changed for the better, emotionally many people in the town of 20,000 remain frozen in grief and psychologists say it may take several generations to ease the trauma fully.

“The year of the tsunami, I was angry at the wave,” said Kazuo Sato, a former oyster fisherman who can still barely look at the sea. He lost 100 friends and relatives.

“What’s left is regret, and that’s getting worse. We could have saved so many more people.”

The town center has been transformed with 5 million cubic tonnes of earth scraped from a nearby mountain and shaped by a fleet of backhoes into mounds up to 46 feet high.

Cranes loom over a towering seawall and new roads snake over the hills.

Home building will finally start this summer, offering hope for 1,400 households still in barracks-like temporary housing.

Officials, including Mayor Futoshi Toba, deplore regulations that delayed construction and worry that with the passing of time, attention will be diverted from a recovery only 60 percent complete. National funds for rebuilding will dip with the new fiscal year from April.

Many also worry that construction for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will hamper the rebuilding of the town.

“If construction overlaps, there won’t be enough workers and wages will rise, making houses more expensive,” said Toba, who watched helplessly from the city hall roof as the town was destroyed. His wife, with whom he had spoken moments before the quake, was killed.

“Why did the government want the Olympics in 2020? I think they could easily have hosted them four years later.”

SPRING SNOW

Some residents say the new embankments are uncomfortable reminders of how much their lives have changed.

“I think probably a lot of people have complicated feelings,” said city official Tsuyoshi Yamada. “But their feelings of wanting to live in a safe place are stronger.”

Long-suppressed feelings of anguish are emerging as life slips back into routines, but a stigma against mental illness in Japan makes many people reluctant to seek help.

“They keep their feelings shut tight in their chests out of a sense that others have suffered even more,” said psychologist Kiyoka Yukimoto. “For this city to really recover, they need mental health services.”

Volunteer firemen, who took to the streets telling people to flee as the water loomed, have particularly painful memories. One man began weeping as he recalled 51 colleagues who lost their lives.

“A couple of guys went down to check on an elderly man, even though I said we had no more time. None of them came back,” Kumagai said.

Toba, whose duties kept him from searching for his wife or seeing his children after the quake, said feelings were complex.

“It always snows around 3/11, even though it should be spring. But the weather reminds us of that day and everybody remembers those who died,” he said.

“At the same time, it is five years, so we shouldn’t just talk about gloomy things. We need to look forward and build a place where children can talk about their dreams.”

(Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Linda Sieg, Robert Birsel)

Massive Quake Shakes Chile’s Capital

At least 8 people are dead and a million people have been displaced because of a massive magnitude 8.3 earthquake in Chile.

Violent aftershocks continue to shake the ground around Santiago and surrounding towns.  Residents were preparing for the possibility of a second strong quake although the tsunami warnings have ended for the region.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) says the quake struck around 6:45 p.m., 29 miles west of the capital in a small city of Illapel.  The USGS reported the quake was the strongest to hit the region in 100 years.

Aftershocks of 6.3 and 6.4 have been recorded by the USGS.  A tsunami watch was issued for both California and Hawaii because of the quakes, although they were later retracted.  Residents are still being warned to watch for high waves and significant rip tides.

Chile is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world because of two major plates connecting just off the coastline.  The strongest recorded quake in world history took place in the nation in 1960, magnitude 9.5.

The Chile Earthquake’s First Tsunami Waves Strike

A TIDE GAUGE off the shore of Coquimbo, a Chilean seaside city less than 100 miles from the epicenter of tonight’s 8.3 moment magnitude earthquake, has logged wave heights in excess of 14 feet. This comes about 90 minutes after the quake struck at 7:54pm local time.

NOAA’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has predicted wave heights exceeding 36 feet along the Chilean coast, and smaller events elsewhere in the Pacific. Outside of Chile, French Polynesia, a group of over 100 islands in the middle of the south Pacific, is in the most danger. There, NOAA warns of tsunami waves from three to nine feet.

Source: Wired – The Chile Earthquake’s First Tsunami Waves Strike

Tsunami alert as Chile hit by powerful earthquake

A powerful earthquake has hit central Chile, causing buildings to sway in the capital Santiago, officials say.

The 8.3-magnitude tremor was centred off the coast, about 144 miles (232km) north-west of the capital.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center warned that “widespread hazardous tsunami waves are possible”.

One person was killed by a falling wall, and evacuation was ordered in coastal areas. Tsunami sirens were heard in the port of Valparaiso.

Chilean officials say the earthquake has produced waves of up to 4.5 metres (15 feet) along the coast in the region of Coquimbo.

Source: BBC News – Tsunami alert as Chile hit by powerful earthquake

Kick ‘em Jenny Putting Ships at Risk

An underwater volcano off the Granada coast is causing a threat to the shipping industry for the island.

Kick ‘em Jenny is off the country’s northern coast.  The threat level of the volcano currently sits at yellow after spending the weekend at the higher orange level.  The yellow threat level means that an eruption of the underwater volcano is possible and that ships should avoid the area of the volcano by a minimum of 1.5 kilometers.

The volcano, despite being 600 feet below the ocean surface, is a threat because a burst of gasses from the volcano could instantly sink a ship in the waters above.  The process, called “degassing”, would make ships suddenly lose their buoyancy and sink.

Plus, hot rocks can shoot out of the water like missiles and endanger other ships in the region.  It could also cause a tsunami depending on the strength of the eruption.

The volcano has erupted a dozen times since being discovered in 1939.  The last major eruption was in 2001.  The volcano is blamed for Grenada’s worst maritime disaster when 60 people died after a ship went right into the ocean over the volcano.

The volcano has been causing hundreds of small earthquakes over the last few weeks.  At one point on Thursday, over 150 quakes were recorded in four-hour period around the volcano.

Earthquake Strikes Off Papua New Guinea

A powerful earthquake struck Papua New Guinea on Tuesday morning generating a small tsunami near the epicenter.

Officials with the Geophysical Observatory in Port Moresby said that the tsunami was 3 feet high and struck in the harbor of Rabaul.  The tsunami caused no flooding and it did not pass the level of the high tide.

The magnitude 7.5 quake struck around 1:45 a.m. local time.

The quake happened along the tectonic plate under Australia and its overriding Pacific plates.  The quake has been preceded by a series of quakes along the fault line that started with a magnitude 7.5 quake on March 29, 2015.

Local officials say there was no widespread damage because of the quake but power lines were brought down in the area of Rabaul.  In Kokopo, buildings were reported with cracks in the walls and other structural damage but there were no reports of injuries.

The quake site is along the Pacific Ring of Fire.