Nepal was made vulnerable by more than its violent geology | Shaheen Chughtai
Kathmandu was ever a disaster-in-waiting. The densely populated capital of one of the world’s poorest countries clings to the slopes of the seismically unstable Himalayas. The city was nearly levelled and 8,500 killed in its last great earthquake 81 years before. It had history. I first arrived in Kathmandu in 2007 to begin a new job with Oxfam. With the Kashmir tragedy fresh in my mind, I remember looking at the thousands of flimsy shacks and hovels lining Kathmandu’s dusty slums and the sturdier, but still precarious, multi-tiered family homes, the cheaply built apartment blocks and ornate temples that collectively give the city its colourful, distinctive appearance. But it’s not just its violent geology that made Kathmandu fundamentally flawed. Such an effort in the near-term will be extremely challenging. Communications are vital for workers to coordinate relief and aid, so the ability of medical and engineering staff to work easily is likely to be severely hampered.
USGS says predicting earthquakes impossible, scientists have no way of knowing when the next one will strike-WNews
New Delhi: The devastating 7.9 magnitude earthquake and a series of aftershocks that have rocked Nepal along with parts of North and East India have led to panic among the general public. To add to their woes several rumours are doing the rounds claiming massive quakes will hit India soon. But scientists who study earthquakes say there is no method at present which can predict the time and intensity of this natural calamity. While the probability of an earthquake can be estimated, those claiming to predict the exact date and time are just fooling the public. Seismologists and geologists universally agree that predicting an earthquake is not possible. According to United States Geological Survey (USGS), one of the most reliable and technically advanced organisation involved in studying earthquakes, scientists are unlikely to be ever be able to predict them. "No, and it is unlikely they will ever be able to predict them.
How Nepal's earthquake was mapped in 48 hours
The aftermath of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal at 11.56 am on 25 April was chaotic. The quake struck at a depth of 9.3 miles, and combined with the tremors and aftershocks that followed has killed at least 5,000 people. That number is still growing. That same morning, a different kind chaos sprang up thousands of miles away, in disparate directions, across the globe -- the effort to use data and satellite maps to help first responders before they even hit the ground. That effort, to date, has seen 2,182 digital volunteers, trawling 14,700 km2 worth of high resolution satellite imagery, identifying 3,128 damaged buildings. "In the week after a large event we are data carnivores -- anything that will make our job easier is used," Dale Kunce, helping coordinate the American Red Cross effort, told WIRED.co.uk. This is how a natural disaster is mapped in 48 hours. Hour one The beginnings of mapping a disaster zone are messy. "We always have people on the ground," says Kunce.
Are Earthquakes and Volcano Activity on the Rise?
The Costa Rica News (TCRN) – If it seems like earthquakes and erupting volcanoes are happening more frequently, that’s because they are. Looking at global magnitude six (M6) or greater from 1980 to 1989 there was an average of 108.5 earthquakes per year, from 2000 to 2009 the planet averaged 160.9 earthquakes per year: that is a 38.9% increase of M6+ earthquakes in recent years. The conspiracy theorists have been sounding alarms for some time about this with fingers pointing to HAARP technology, geo-engineering, electromagnetic waves in the ionosphere, etc. The image below shows statistics from the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) Earthquake Hazards Program showing a significant increase M6 and greater events: The graph below shows the cumulative number of earthquakes M3 or greater in the mid-continental United States. The image above and associated data set from the USGS, has prompted the USGS to launch a scientific study to determine if the increase is natural, or man-made.
DigitalGlobe opens access to satellite data to support disaster response efforts in Nepal | Seeing a better world™
In response to the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck central Nepal on April 25, DigitalGlobe has made high resolution satellite imagery of the affected areas freely available online to all groups involved in the response and recovery effort. This imagery can be accessed via Username: nepal Password: forcrisis Specifically, DigitalGlobe activated FirstLook, the subscription service that provides emergency management and humanitarian workers with fast, web-based access to pre- and post-event images of the impacted area. DigitalGlobe captured imagery of the area yesterday through heavy cloud cover with its WorldView-1, and WorldView-3, and GeoEye-1 satellites. In addition, DigitalGlobe has activated Tomnod, the crowdsourcing platform that allows web-connected volunteers around the globe to help disaster response teams by mapping damage from this earthquake.
Nepal quake survivor Rishi Khanal forced to drink his urine to survive : Nepal Earthquake 2015, News
A man pulled from the rubble of a collapsed hotel by a French rescue team more than three days after the deadly Nepal earthquake says he was forced to drink his own urine to survive. Rishi Khanal, 27, had just finished lunch at a hotel in Kathmandu and had gone up to the second floor when everything suddenly started to move and fall apart. He was struck by falling masonry and trapped with his foot crushed under rubble. "I had some hope but by yesterday I'd given up. He was surrounded by dead people and a terrible smell. "There was no sound going out, or coming in. It was not clear if he was a hotel employee or a guest. "It feels good. More than 5,000 people are known to have died and over 10,000 injured in Nepal in the magnitude 7.8 earthquake.
Here's How Long It Would Take To Fall Through The Center Of Earth
Just how long would it take to fall through the center of the Earth, traveling from one side of our planet to the other? Physicists have long calculated the answer to that question as being 42 minutes, but now, new calculations show that the theoretical trip would actually take around 38 minutes -- and we can blame gravity for the discrepancy. The traditional calculation to measure a fall through Earth assumes that our planet has a constant density throughout its many layers. But as Alexander Klotz, a graduate student at McGill University in Canada, came up with the new calculations, he took into consideration how Earth's density changes layer by layer. Klotz measured the different densities found in Earth's interior using seismic data. A paper describing the new thought experiment results was published in the March 2015 issue of the American Journal of Physics. "This is the kind of paper we love," Dr. Want to learn more about our planet's internal layers?
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