A Week of Earthquakes

[naervod]

TEHRAN, Iran - A severe earthquake devastated the historic city of Bam in southeast Iran on Friday, and officials said many people were killed.

Hasan Khoshrou, a legislator for Kerman province where the quake occurred, said he had been told the devastation in the city of 80,000 people was "beyond imagination."

"No death toll is available, but it looks to be very, very high," Khoshrou said.

Iranian television said the magnitude 6.3 quake leveled about 60 percent of the houses in Bam, 630 miles southeast of the capital, killing many people as they slept. Authorities put out a call for blood donations.

The U.S. Geological Survey (news - web sites) reported the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.7, capable of causing severe damage, and hit at 5:27 a.m. local time.

"Many people have died," Kerman province Gov. Mohammad Ali Karimi told state media. "Many people are buried under the rubble."

Reports said the earthquake destroyed Bam's medieval fortress, a massive, 2,000-year-old structure that sits on a cliff near the city and attracts thousands of tourists each year. The fortress overlooks an ancient, abandoned city of mud huts.

State media reported damage in three villages around Bam and said telephone links with the city were severed. Authorities were in contact with the Bam area through radio and satellite phone links.

Authorities have sent numerous rescue workers with helicopters to the area, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

"We are doing everything we can to rescue the injured and unearth the dead," television quoted Karimi as saying.

There were several aftershocks, one of magnitude 5.3, IRNA quoted the geophysics institute of Tehran University as saying.

Earthquakes (news - web sites) in the last 25 years have caused thousands of deaths in Iran, which sits on several fault lines. A magnitude 7.7 temblor killed 25,000 in 1978, and a magnitude 6 quake in June, 2002 killed 500 people.

Link

Yet another tragedy in the holiday season. Maybe it's something with natural disasters around Christmas, I have no idea. It is sad to see a historical place ruined like this.

 

[Mrogreturns]

And here I am sitting in Tokyo, waiting..................................

 

[carlosMM]

6.3!!!! Only 6.3!!!!!!! That's practically nothing! Those poor souls!


I wish, earthquakes of that magnitude would ONLY occur in Japan or the south-eastern US (if we must have them at all) - there, people are rich enough to build secure buildings.

What was the death toll of Japan's last 6.3 earthquake??????????

 

[Plexus]

No, if there must be Earthquakes anywhere, have them in California or Japan (Honshu), we're prepared for them.

 

[G-Man]

Thousands more killed by a goverment which cares too much about itself and too little about its citizens.

 

[Mrogreturns]

Estmated deaths for the next large quake in Tokyo run from multiple 100k to four million- of course that is from a population of around 30 mil, but even so...

 

[G-Man]

What exactly do you mean by "large quake"?

 

[Mrogreturns]

Originally posted by G-Man
What exactly do you mean by "large quake"?

The last was 8.3- quakes of around that magnitude occur about once every 60-70 or so years in the Tokyo region. The last was in 1923. As they say- you do the math.

 

[G-Man]

And what quakes are buildings in Tokyo built to stand?

 

[Mrogreturns]

The newer ones are supposed to be able to take that, but there are millions of older buildings.

 

[G-Man]

What is the goverment/city administration doing about it? And what do ordinary people do?

 

[Eastern Knight]

God bless these poor souls, is this holiday season cursed or something? All kinds of tragics happen everywhere.

 

[carlosMM]

Originally posted by Mrogreturns
Estmated deaths for the next large quake in Tokyo run from multiple 100k to four million- of course that is from a population of around 30 mil, but even so...

I know (I studied that stuff), so I really HOPE you really get a lot of 6.something ones that do not let a HUGE one build up!

 

[Bozo Erectus]

An earthquake of comparable strength in California kills 3, but in Iran, the death toll is put as high as possibly 10,000. Its good to be rich.

 

[G-Man]

Originally posted by Dumb pothead
An earthquake of comparable strength in California kills 3, but in Iran, the death toll is put as high as possibly 10,000. Its good to be rich.

It's also good to live in a country where free media can discover such construction failures before a city dissapears and where the corruption isn't so high that construction regulation can't be imposed.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Earthquakes don't kill poeple, falling buildings do.
As for the next great Tokyo quake, they already have a name for it, what is it I do not recall. But the municipal government already has firefighting plans, detailed ones. They have already mapped out the most probable paths of the fire storms, and build a giant apartment block right in the middle of the path to try and stop it. Yes it's full of poeple. From what I've seen, metal shutters will close down over the buildings and sprinklers will cover every inch of the outside with cold water for as long as it will last. The plan is not to stop the firestorm, only delay it. I'm not the expert in this, I only recall seeing this on some Discovery Channel special on earthquakes.

As for earthquakes in general, you have to understand that thousands happen every year. Some are big, some are small. Most NEVER get reported because they are too far from any place of importance. The ones that do get reported are ANY that happen in rich countries with lots of media, and those in poorer countires that kill many unlucky poeple. As for tragedies during the holidays, call it coincidenc. Would you be saying the same thing had this and the California quake happened during an uneventful time during the year?

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Originally posted by G-Man
It's also good to live in a country where free media can discover such construction failures before a city dissapears and where the corruption isn't so high that construction regulation can't be imposed.

Definitely. When corruption exists from the highest posts in the government all the way down to the street level, real change is impossible because everyone depends on graft to supplement their incomes. Why bother sending building inspectors who get paid like $20 a month to inspect a building site? We know whats going to happen: the guy running the building site hands him $40 (two months pay). One can hardly blame the civil servants, they arent paid a living wage, so theyre practically forced into corruption just to feed their families.

 

[The Yankee]

A damn shame that this happened. Officials are saying up to 20,000 may be dead. The last big earthquake to happen there killed some 35,000. That and they have those ancient, really huge buildings that are very much at risk.

It's odd and sad knowing that while I was sleeping or going to the bathroom or reading U.S. News that thousands of people were killed in something like that.

No need to start bashing the Iranian government. We all know how bad it is, but this isn't the place for it. Can't we just be sad over a horrific event without getting into politics and bad regimes?

 

[Bozo Erectus]

I wasnt bashing the Iranian regime, I was just agreeing with Gman that corruption plays a big role in earthquake damage in the developing world. If all anybody said in this thread was "BOO-HOO" it would be pretty boring.

 

[Hitro]

Originally posted by The Yankee
No need to start bashing the Iranian government. We all know how bad it is, but this isn't the place for it. Can't we just be sad over a horrific event without getting into politics and bad regimes?

True. Happened in Turkey as well some years ago. First, corruption is everywhere, and second, think about that not every country in the world has the resources of Japan to scrap and rebuild in the way the Japanese did.

I also recall a certain wedding incident in Israel, and there wasn't even an Earthquake...

This is a major non-political catastrophe that alot of human beings fell victim to. It is absolutely wrong to make it anything different. Next thing will be someone saying it's God's revenge for something.