Acehtsunami

The signals of GPS satellites could be used to monitor tsunamis as they brush away the ocean. In the most detailed study to date of the effect, scientists have shown that even though open ocean tsunami waves are only a few centimetres high, they are great enough to create atmospheric vibrations extending all the way to the ionosphere, 300 kilometres up in the atmosphere. The finding, the researchers hope, could hugely improve tsunami early-warning systems.

In a study published online on 1 September in Geophysical Research Letters, a team of French geophysicists was able to use these ionospheric effects to trace the progress of three recent tsunamis, including the one activated by the 27 February earthquake in Chile, which had a magnitude of 8.8. The researchers showed that the strength of the ionospheric effects increased with the height of the wave.

The maximum height of that tsunami, which swept across the Pacific, was only 10 centimetres in mid-ocean, but low-lying tsunami waves can be more than 100 kilometres long. During a tsunami, hundreds of square kilometres of ocean rise and fall, nearly in unison. This produces a rhythmic movement in the atmosphere, generating a vertically propagating wave known as an internal gravity wave. The thinning air causes the wave to spread out vertically and the air movements become larger.

Newly discovered tsunami deposits imply that the Japanese coastline was hammered by a series of massive waves thousands of years ago. The finding adds to growing proof that the region is regularly pounded by killer waves, and could help in planning for future inundations. The northern Japanese island of Hokkaido is huddled up against the Kuril-Kamchatka trench, a place where the Pacific tectonic plate dives beneath the Eurasian plate and home to terrible earthquakes in excess of magnitude 8.0.
Now Wesley Nutter and a team of researchers say nine waves, each at least 33 feet high, thrashed the coastline before the dawn of civilization on the island. “In recorded history, tsunamis have hit the Hokkaido coast over and over again,” Wesley Nutter of Earlham College in Indiana said. “But something of that size has never been recorded here.”
Nutter and a team of researchers dug down into the sediments of a saltwater marsh on the island looking for signs of past tsunamis. Team member Kazuomi Hirakawa of Hokkaido University had first detected a series of sand deposits several years ago there that had no business in a marsh mostly made of peat. Tracing the sand deposits away from the coast, the team found they extend up to more than a mile inland and get thinner further from the sea.

Earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7 strike the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico early Sunday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake hit at 1:16 a.m. (0516 GMT) four miles (six kilometers) from the small community of Espino on the western part of the island and 63 miles (101 kilometers) from the capital, San Juan. It was recorded at a depth of 68 miles (110 kilometers).

There were no immediate reports of damage and injuries.

The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center said it did not guess a tsunami, but local tsunamis triggered by underwater landslides were possible in coastal areas close to the epicenter.

It has been planned and designed as a symbolic reminder of the disaster, as well as an educational centre. In addition it will also serve as an Emergency disaster shelter in case the area is ever hit by a tsunami again.

Aceh served as home for more than half the 240,000 people who died in the disaster. The outburst of aid which followed was the largest in history. Almost all that aid money has now been spent - gone to pay for more than 130,000 houses and thousands of kilometers of road, bridges, as well as schools, and other infrastructure.

Yet this new museum building, paid for by Ache’s Reconstruction Fund, breaks with the tradition of post-disaster construction.

Tsunamis can be generated when the sea floor hurriedly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water. Tectonic earthquakes are a certain kind of earthquake that are associated with the earth’s crustal deformation; when these earthquakes occur beneath the sea, the water above the deformed area is relocated from its equilibrium position.

Waves are formed as the displaced water mass, which acts under the pressure of gravity, attempts to regain its equilibrium. When large areas of the ocean floor elevate or subside, a tsunami can be created. Huge vertical movements of the earth’s crust can occur at plate boundaries.

Plates act together along these boundaries called faults. Around the margins of the Pacific Ocean, for instance, denser oceanic plates slip under continental plates in a process known as subduction. Subduction earthquakes are mainly effective in generating tsunamis.

Observers say the arrests reflect the growing fear among illegal Haitian immigrants in North America since the Jan. 12 damage. Among last 2 & half months, they have caught 115 Haitians trying to cross the border by foot into Vermont & New York, including 8 people over Easter weekend, border authorities said.

They may be tried re-entering the U.S. to take advantage of an 18-month ban on deportations to Haiti, passed by the Obama administration after the earthquake. Lots of were heading to New York City & Miami.

Haitians living in North American were paying among $50 & $100 a month for family at home, but many are now trying to double those amounts, said Villefranche. It’s not clear what will go on to the Haitians arrested at the border.

Polanco drove the equipment for the International Committee of the Red Cross 11 hours from a harbor in the Dominican Republic, only to have the Haitian customs agent discover 1 problem later one more with his paperwork. As he remained in the shade of his truck’s cab in this dusty border town, dozens of others were lined up after him.

Haitian Prime Minister said that the border controls are compulsory to catch smuggled goods, & also lift revenues from commercial drivers’ trade in fees. “Some kind of control is needed,” said Bellerive, who put in that delays were to be waiting for. “There is a lot of traffic across a border that was not ready for that.”

Haitian children & young people aged 5 to 24 shared their views on issues affecting them such as gender, disabilities, violent behavior & misuse, disaster risk reduction, & their own rights & responsibilities post-earthquake as their country come outs from recent earthquakes at a series of focus group thought held throughout the country from 26 February to 5 March.

In a recent situation disaster risk assessment study with more than 1,000 children, may said that go back to school & continue their education as soon as possible. I also want each to have access to schooling,” said quake survivor Daphmika at Port-au-Prince.

Nearly one in every 14 children did not live to see their 5th birthday & children who lived were troubled by high rates of malnutrition. Approximately 50% of all Haitian children did not attend primary school & only 18% of boys & 21% of girls attended secondary school.

The government of Haiti has notified that more than one million children in the earthquake zone were already in vulnerable circumstances & now face increased risks due to loss, separation from, or displacement of their families, malnutrition, illness, psychological trauma & abuse.

JPL research scientist Richard Gross computed how Earth’s rotation should have changed as a result of the Feb. 27 quake. Using a complex model, he and fellow scientists came up with a preliminary calculation that the quake should have shortened the length of an Earth day by about 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).

Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth’s axis. Gross calculates the quake should have moved Earth’s figure axis (the axis about which Earth’s mass is balanced) by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters, or 3 inches). Earth’s figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis; they are offset by about 10 meters (about 33 feet).

By comparison, Gross said the same model estimated the 2004 magnitude 9.1 Sumatran earthquake should have shortened the length of day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted Earth’s axis by 2.32 milliarcseconds (about 7 centimeters, or 2.76 inches).

Gross said that even though the Chilean earthquake is much smaller than the Sumatran quake, it is predicted to have changed the position of the figure axis by a bit more for two reasons. First, unlike the 2004 Sumatran earthquake, which was located near the equator, the 2010 Chilean earthquake was located in Earth’s mid-latitudes, which makes it more effective in shifting Earth’s figure axis. Second, the fault responsible for the 2010 Chiliean earthquake dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle than does the fault responsible for the 2004 Sumatran earthquake. This makes the Chile fault more effective in moving Earth’s mass vertically and hence more effective in shifting Earth’s figure axis. Gross said the Chile predictions will likely change as data on the quake are further refined.

Kyrgyzstan To Xinjiang

The most important pass in border between Kyrgyzstan and Xinjiang is Torugart Pass, which is “Central Asia’s most exhilarating overland crossing. Scenically extraordinary but logistically difficult and potentially expensive.” (Lonely Planet: Central Asia (2000))

By Crossing the Torugart Pass, travellers get to Kezilesu in westerm Xinjiang and might head eastwards to Kashi and Hetian. Xinjiang’s Akesu is also bordering Kyrgyzstan.

Wednesday, December 25, 2002 at 12:57:07 (UTC)

Magnitude : 5.7
Time : Wednesday, December 25, 2002 at 12:57:07 (UTC)
Distance from : 106 km (66 miles) ESE (108 degrees) of Kyrgyzstan-Xinjiang
Coordinates : 39 deg. 42.2 min. N (39.703N) Depth 33.0 km (20.5 miles)
border region
Quality : Error estimate: horizontal +/- 6.1 km; depth fixed by location program