Breaking News: At least 48 people killed after quake & devastating tsunami ravage Indonesian island

September 28, 2018 By administrator

quake & devastating tsunami ravage Indonesian

Scores of people have been killed in Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, struck by a 7.7-magnitude quake, which triggered a tsunami that swept through two coastal towns. Dozens of houses have been flattened, burying victims under rubble.

Harrowing images have come from Indonesia, showing the scale of destruction that the Sulawesi quake inflicted on the towns of Palu and Donggala, located close to the epicenter of the quake that wrought havoc on the island on Friday afternoon.

Rescue efforts have been hampered by a power blackout that hit the affected towns, making it impossible for the authorities to estimate the real number of victims.

Dr. H. Wiranto, Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, said on Friday evening that the authorities were still having difficulties with receiving feedback from the regions severely affected by the disaster.

He said that the government might have to resort to the satellite communication provided by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency if power is not restored by Sunday morning.

With the lack of official death toll, the national disaster agency says it’s recovered at least 48 bodies after the quake and the ensuing tsunami that hit the coastline with 3-meter (10 foot) high waves.

The Palu airport has also been damaged, losing some 500 meters of its 2,500-meter long runway. However, the authorities assured that the remaining length will be enough for Hercules cargo aircraft to land and bring essential supplies to the hard-hit regions.

Strong quake near Mexico City kills at least 226, rescuers dig through collapsed buildings

September 20, 2017 By administrator

Rescue crews and ordinary citizens searched through rubble for survivors as night fell on Tuesday on battered cities in central Mexico, including the capital, where the death toll from a major earthquake grew to at least 226, Reuters reported.

The magnitude 7.1 quake toppled dozens of buildings, broke gas mains and sparked fires less than two weeks after another powerful quake killed at least 98 people in southern Mexico. It also hit just hours after emergency drills marked the anniversary of a temblor that killed thousands in 1985.

Millions of people fled into the streets, where they weathered the violent shaking and desperately sought word about the welfare of family and friends.

Emergency personnel in Mexico City, a metropolitan region of about 20 million people, searched frantically with picks and shovels for survivors beneath the rubble of what the sprawling city’s mayor calculated to be as many as 44 collapsed buildings, including at least one primary school.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said late on Tuesday more than 20 children and two adults had been found dead at the school, Colegio Enrique Rebsamen, in the neighborhood of Coapa. Another 30 children and 12 adults were missing, he said.

Emergency personnel and equipment were being deployed across affected areas so that “throughout the night we can continue aiding the population and eventually find people beneath the rubble,” Peña Nieto said in a video posted on Facebook earlier on Tuesday evening.

Rescue workers and soldiers toiled around collapsed buildings where heat-sensing equipment suggested survivors could still be trapped. Bystanders joined in where they could, clearing debris with their bare hands or whatever tools they could find nearby.

The quake had killed 49 people in the capital by late Tuesday, according to civil defense chief Luis Felipe Puente. The highest toll, he said, was in Morelos State, just to the south, where 55 people were killed.

Another 13 people were reported killed in the neighboring states of Mexico and Guerrero. Thirty-two deaths had been counted in the central state of Puebla, also to the south, where the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) located the quake’s epicenter.

As many as 4.6 million homes, businesses and other facilities had lost electricity, according to national power company Comisión Federal de Electricidad. Most of them were in the greater Mexico City area and in the states of Guerrero, Morelos, Puebla, Oaxaca, and Tlaxcala.

Armenian-Russian film to center on devastating Spitak quake of 1988

October 20, 2014 By administrator

A film based on the 1988 devastating earthquake in Armenia will launch production in January 2015, Kavkaz-uzel.ru reported.

The Yerevan, Gyumri and Moscow-set Armenian-Russian film titled “11:41” will star Armen Jigarkhanyan, Yevgeni Sidikhin, Chulpan Hamatova, Rafael Kotanjyan, Mkrtich Arzumanyan and Sos Janibekyan.

The film, budgeted at $2,5 million was produced and scripted by Cinema Concept Production founder Alik Shahbazyan.

The film centers at a young woman (Hamatova) buried under the quake debris with her 1,5-year-old baby daughter who she keeps alive by biting through her fingers to feed the child with her own blood.

“These characters were based on real-life events, with the actual mother and daughter to be consulted during the film-making,” Shakhbazyan said.

The filmmakers hope to premiere the movie December 7, 2015 at 11: 41 through the assistance of World Armenian Congress.

On December 7, 1988, at 11:41 a.m. local time, magnitude 6.9 earthquake shook northwestern Armenia and was followed four minutes later by a magnitude 5.8 aftershock. In the epicenter, the village of Nalband, the tremors were reported to measure 10 on the Richter scale.

The earthquake leveled the cities of Spitak and Gyumri and left about 25,000 people dead, 100,000 injured and 500 000 homeless.