Strong Earthquake Hits Tibet

The USGS is saying the earthquake was a magnitude 6.3, though locally it is being reported at 6.8 and it struck near the mountainous Zhongba County in Xigaze prefecture, close to India in southern Tibet and there are no immediate report of casualties.

The quake hit the region at 9:22 p.m. (6:52 p.m. IST), according to a National Earthquake Network press release.

The epicentre was about 10 km underground at 31.0 degrees north latitude and 83.6 degrees east longitude, Xinhua news agency reported.

The area, at an average altitude of 5,500 metres, is sparsely populated.

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New Study Says New York City Is At Risk For A Massive Earthquake

The study published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, says that the New York City area is at "substantially greater" risk of earthquakes than previously thought, scientists said Thursday.

Damage could range from minor to major, with a rare but potentially powerful event killing people and costing billions of dollars in damage.

A pattern of subtle but active faults is known to exist in the region, and now new faults have been found. The scientists say that among other things, the Indian Point nuclear power plants, 24 miles north of the city, sit astride the previously unidentified intersection of two active seismic zones.

Earthquakes are rare on the East Coast, but they have happened. In 1737, a 5.0 earthquake crumbled chimneys in New York City and the tremors were felt all the way from Boston to Philadelphia, according to LiveScience.com. Less than 50 years later, another quake hit the region, the Web site reported. Then in 1884, a 5.5 earthquake wreaked havoc similar to that caused by the 1737 quake, although the 19th century one affected a wider region.

Researchers said earthquakes of at least 5.0 in magnitude should occur every 100 years, based on their study of 383 earthquakes dating from 1677 to 2007 in a 15,000-square-mile area around New York City and 34 years of new tremblor data, LiveScience.com said.

Despite the infrequency of quakes on the East Coast, the amount and concentration of people and infrastructure make it a particularly risky situation -- one the New York City Area Consortium for Earthquake Loss Mitigation said could cost anywhere from $39 billion to $197 billion, according to LiveScience.

"Today, with so many more buildings and people, a magnitude 5 centered below the city would be extremely attention-getting," John Armbruster, of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told LiveScience.com. "We'd see billions in damage, with some brick buildings falling. People would probably be killed."

It's possible even magnitude-6 or 7 quakes could strike the area, which could cause 10 to 100 times the damage of a magnitude-5.0, researchers said. A key concern is that earthquakes on the East Coast can't be seen at the surface, which means it could hit from a fault no one knew about.

New Faults have been found near the Indian Point nuclear power plant less than 25 miles north of NYC.

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UPDATE: On Los Angeles Earthquake

The Magnitude of the earthquake has been reduce to 5.4 from an original magnitude of 5.8 within an hour of the quake striking.

There was no major structural damage reported though some minor damage to older brick structures and some broken windows, with no major injuries reported.

The reduction in major damage is being credited by tougher building codes that were put into place after the 1994 Northridge quake.

Though this was considered to be only a moderate quake experts are warning that there is still a great potential for a powerful and destructive earthquake to hit California in the next 30 years.

For more on this story see the sources below.

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5.8 Earthquake Hits Los Angeles

BREAKING NOW:

5.8 Earthquake hits LA, lasting about 30 seconds in duration with aftershocks already being reported.

No Major
damage reported at this time. However Cellular communications are being overloaded and authorities are asking people not to use cell phone unless it is an emergency.

Also a 2.2 earthquake also hit this morning in Hayward, CA.

We will provide an update later when we have more information.

Latest Update on Eathquake in China

China had two aftershocks over the weekend further damaging the countries infrastructure and causing another 60 injuries, 6 of which are critical and destroyed another 420,000 homes.

The current death toll as of this writing is now above 67,000. Such a large number of dead and injured are children that China is making the unprecedented step of issuing certificates to parents to have a second child if the parents had a child killed or seriously injured in the earthquake.

Many areas are being evacuated either due to large scale flooding from massive amounts of debris blocking rivers in what are being called quake lakes. In some cases large parts of mountains literally fell into the rivers blocking the flow of the water. Currently the numbers being evacuated are around 150,000.

Also in a reversal from earlier reports China is saying that about 69 dams are on the verge of collapse after they down played the damage for the last two weeks. China is home to more dams than any other country and also constitutes about half of the worlds dams.

Fears are also rising about outbreaks of disease since survivors are living in cramped and sometimes unsanitary spaces. Officials say there have been cases of diarrhea, tuberculosis, and hepatitis among survivors, and they are monitoring the cases closely.

Help is badly needed in China, if you can please make a donation to one of the organisations below, to help.

Red Cross
Doctors Without Borders

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