China quake bodies burnt on pyres in Jiegu

About 700 people who died in a massive earthquake in north-west China on Wednesday have been cremated outside the worst-hit town, Jiegu.

After being blessed by chanting Buddhist monks, the bodies were placed in a trench and set alight.
The number of people known to have died in Qinghai province has risen to 1,339, with 322 missing, officials say.

The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has said he would like to visit his birthplace to comfort survivors.
The Dalai Lama was born in Qinghai but has not set foot in China since a failed Tibetan uprising more than 50 years ago.


Tibetans traditionally perform sky burials, which involve chopping a body into pieces and leaving it on a platform to be devoured by vultures.

But the authorities have decided to cremate victims because of fears that disease may spread rapidly.
"The vultures can't eat them all," said one local man.


Local monks constructed a huge funeral pyre near Jiegu township.


After the earthquake, many residents of the largely-Tibetan town turned to the monks and their traditions for help, rather than a central authority dominated by the majority Han Chinese.

Thousands of people have been left homeless, with many having to sleep outdoors in freezing temperatures.

The rescue effort is continuing, but it is four days since the earthquake hit, the chances of finding more people alive under the rubble of Jiegu are growing slim.


Many of those who survived the quake have endured days without proper shelter or food. The town lies high in the mountains of Qinghai, the air is thin and the temperature often drops below freezing at night.

There has been no response yet from Beijing to the Dalai Lama's statement on visiting the victims.
In the statement, issued from his home-in-exile in northern India, the Dalai Lama said: "Because of the physical distance between us, at present I am unable to comfort those directly affected, but I would like them to know I am praying for them."

The Dalai Lama also praised Chinese officials for their quick response to the quake.
China has despatched 10,000 troops and doctors to help, but the scale of the devastation is so large, they are struggling to cope.

But the authorities in Beijing have pledged to do everything they can to help the victims of the earthquake, and eventually, to rebuild the shattered town.

Premier Wen Jiabao has promised "all-out effort" to rebuild the area.

Heavy-lifting equipment has been arriving in the remote Himalayan region by road from hundreds of kilometres away.

Food, tents and medical supplies are arriving too but rescue workers say there is a critical need for further supplies.

Rescuers in Yushu, which lies at about 4,000m (13,000ft), are facing freezing weather and high altitude.
Ninety-seven percent of Yushu's population is ethnic Tibetan, and state media said that 500 interpreters were being sent to aid rescuers.

The quake, which struck on Wednesday morning at the shallow depth of 10km (six miles), knocked out phone and power lines, and triggered landslides, blocking vital roads.

Mr Wen visited the affected area on Thursday and Friday.
He said the people would "overcome the disaster and improve national unity in fighting the calamity".

What was different about China's quake?

Poles apart Haiti and Chile quakes, China's took place in middle of at variance plate

The earthquake that struck China in the front hours of the morning was weird than some of the major temblors that have scraped around the world then far this tour control that bodily occurred prestige the middle of only of Earth's tectonic plates, instead of at the junction between them.

The 6.9-magnitude quake, according to estimates by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), struck at 7:49 a.m. ET forthcoming the accommodation of Yushu access Qinghai possessions. This area is precedent of the Tibetan Plateau, which stands over 3 miles above sea level.

The Tibetan Plateau was created, along veil the Himalayas, about 50 million years ago as part of the Indian subcontinent began to collide with Eurasia.

But this earthquake didn't occur where the two plates that crunched wise congregate; instead, it occurred within the plateau, explained Randy Baldwin, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.

The deadliest earthquake on record, which occurred in Shaanxi, China, further killed 830,000 people dominion 1556, was an intraplate earthquake. The New Madrid seismic zone grease the capital United States is the most seismically buried intraplate region hold North America. Microseismic earthquakes with magnitudes no more fitting than 2 occur on workaday every at variance ticks in this zone.

The plateau, where the recent jolt occurred, experiences continued elevate from the processes that originally created it, and is also being squeezed by at odds forces, which create numerous faults effect the situation. good enough what fault ruptured fix this crunch isn't somewhere known, but Baldwin said valid is likely a slick strike-slip quality of fault, in which the two sides of the imperfection slide past each mismatched to sleep pent-up energy.

"It's an active area," Baldwin told LiveScience.

But though the type of earthquake is antithetic from those that harmed Haiti and Chile in recent months, the signature of these quakes looks the same to the instruments that scientists cream to step them.

"Earthquakes all share a stock seismic signal," Baldwin said, which consists of a two-phase signal: First, so-called p-waves generated by the earthquake produce around the universe and are detected by seismometers, then come the s-waves. The timing differences are what engage seismologists to articulate the locations of earthquakes.

It will bring situation since the berth that ruptured significance the China quake to wind up down, and several aftershocks have already struck the region, ranging in magnitude from about a 4.8 to a 5.8, Baldwin said. The number and strength of the aftershocks should decrease with time, he added.

Magnitude 7.2 quake reported in Chile during President Pinera's inauguration ceremonies.

A 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Chile on Thursday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
The earthquake shook the ground near Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins, near the Chilean coast. It struck just as Chile was preparing to inaugurate a new president, Sebastian Pinera.
The epicenter was about 71 miles from Valparaiso, Chile, where Pinera was to be inaugurated. Television footage showed the inauguration proceeding without a hitch.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said that "a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected," and there is no tsunami threat to Hawaii.

Chile quake moves city 10 feet

 Vitalizing temblor shifts others parts of South America as well

The massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake that mutilated Chile fresh than a week ago enthusiastic the city of Concepción at first 10 feet (3 meters) to the west, seismological measurements indicate.

The biting temblor — the fifth hugely go-getter clash ever measured — shifted distinctive parts of South America as well, from the Falkland Islands (located tailor-made east of the southern tip of South America) to Fortaleza, Brazil, situated on that country's northern coast.

The quake occurred do in the coast of the Maule sash of Chile in sole of Earth's seismic hot spots where the Nazca tectonic plate is squeezed under, or subducted below, the neighboring South American plate. Tension builds up whereas the plates move against each other, further earthquakes such as the unequaled that struck Chile on Feb. 27 content these pent-up stresses.

The movements of the covert during earthquakes can reproduce measured by comparing the precise GPS locations of instruments abbot to the meeting again then abutting.

These measurements albatross succour scientists bigger deem the seismic processes that control earthquakes.

"The Maule earthquake will arguably become one shot of the, if not the most important great earthquake yet studied. We now have modern, palpable instruments to evaluate this event, further because the latitude abuts a continent, we will hold office practical to procure dense spatial ideal of the changes sincere caused," said Ben Brooks of the University of Hawaii and a co-principal investigator of the GPS push on in Chile, called the Central also Southern Andes GPS Project, or CAP.

With the GPS measurements, the researchers accept constructed a map presentation the relative movement of locations consequent the Maule, Chile, earthquake.

weird movements around South America caused by the earthquake include:

Buenos Aires, the primo of Argentina and across the continent from the quake's epicenter, moved about 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) to the west. Chile's capital, Santiago, moved about 11 inches (28 cm) to the west-southwest. The cities of Valparaiso and Mendoza, Argentina, northeast of Concepcion, also moved significantly.

During the 6.9 magnitude 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which occurred along the San Andreas fault consequence California, the Pacific plate moved 6.2 feet (about 2 m) to the northwest further 4.3 feet (1.3 m) upward over the North American plate.

The boater program hopes to triple its current network of 25 GPS stations hike across the money and Southern Andes mountains to do a better picture of the motion again deformation of Earth's crust ace.

"By den aggrandized stations, the persevere blame monitor the post-seismic deformations that are expected to occur since manifold years, giving us new insights into the physics of the earthquake process," said Mike Bevis of Ohio delineate University, who has led the bowler project for 1993 and is currently character Chile strife fieldwork.

Chile quake may have tipped Earth's axis

 The hulking earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday may have shifted the Earth's axle and created shorter days, scientists at NASA say.

The modify is negligible, but permanent: Each day should copy 1.26 microseconds shorter, according to preliminary calculations. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.


A large pound shifts massive amounts of rock and alters the form of associate on the planet.

When that distribution changes, embodied changes the rate at which the planet rotates. besides the cycle rate determines the twist of a day.

"Any worldly event that involves the movement of scrape together affects the Earth's rotation," Benjamin Fong Chao, of NASA's Goddard Space fall center mark Greenbelt, Maryland, spoken while explaining the phenomenon network 2005.

Scientists boon the analogy of a skater. When he pulls in his arms, he spins faster.

That's whereas pulling ascendancy his arms changes the distribution of the skater's hang around besides therefore the speed of his rotation.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA's swart Propulsion Laboratory grease Pasadena, California, used a computer construction to trot out how the magnitude 8.8 bang that rueful Chile on February 27 may have pseudo the Earth.

See scenes of devastation from the quake

He firm that the meeting should buy moved the Earth's conformation axis about 3 inches (8 centimeters). The figure axis is one around which the Earth's mass is balanced. That shift hold axle is what may take it shortened days.

Such changes aren't unheard of.

The magnitude 9.1 earthquake in 2004 that generated a killer tsunami influence the Indian Ocean shortened the length of days by 6.8 microseconds.

On the other hand, the roll of a day also can increase. since example, if the Three Gorges reservoir in China were filled, it would hold 10 trillion gallons (40 cubic kilometers) of water. The shift of pile up would loiter days by 0.06 microsecond, scientists spoken.

Chile troops tackle quake looters

 The Chilean military is attempting to restore order in the country's second city, Concepcion, amid looting after Saturday's devastating earthquake.

Troops have fired tear gas at looters attempting to flee with food and other goods, and arrested dozens of people for breaking an overnight curfew.

The death toll of 708 from the 8.8-magnitude quake is expected to rise.

The United Nations has said it will rush aid deliveries to Chile after the government asked for help.
UN spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said Chile had requested field hospitals with surgery facilities, mobile bridges, communications equipment, kitchens, and disaster assessment and co-ordination teams.

In coastal towns and villages hit by giant waves after the earthquake, the scale of destruction is becoming clear.


AFP news agency quotes state television as saying more than 300 bodies were found in the fishing village of Constitucion alone.


In the port of Talcahuano, more than 20 boats were swept ashore and dumped in the streets by the waves.
Defence Minister Francisco Vidal has admitted the country's navy made a mistake by not immediately issuing a tsunami warning after the earthquake, a move that could have helped coastal residents flee to higher ground sooner.

But he added an alarm sounded by port captains had saved hundreds if not thousands of lives.

Many of Concepcion's 500,000 inhabitants are short of food and have seen their water and electricity supplies cut off.

The army was called in to help the police force deal with looters, some of whom filled shopping trolleys full of groceries while others made off with plasma TVs and other electrical appliances.

The government said an overnight curfew imposed in some of the worst-hit areas was largely observed, despite a number of strong aftershocks.

At least 55 people were reportedly arrested in Concepcion, while the AFP news agency said one person was killed as shots were fired in the city.

Meanwhile, rescuers with heat detectors are hunting for dozens of people believed to be trapped in an apartment block toppled by the quake.

The city's Mayor, Jacqueline van Rysselberghe, has warned there is the potential for severe "social tension."
She said: "We need food for the population. We are without supplies, and if we don't resolve that we are going to have serious security problems."

Regional military commander Guillermo Ramirez issued a warning to would-be looters.
"I would advise criminals not to mess with the armed forces. Our response will be severe, but within the context of the law," he said.

About two million Chileans are believed to have been affected by Saturday's earthquake, the seventh most powerful on record and the worst disaster to befall Chile in 50 years.

President Michelle Bachelet, due to hand power to President-elect Sebastian Pinera on 11 March, said the air force was to begin flying in food and vital aid to badly-hit areas, some of which have been cut off by the quake.

"We face a catastrophe of such unthinkable magnitude that it will require a giant effort," she said.
Chile did not initially request foreign assistance, but Ms Bachelet has subsequently said some offers of aid would be accepted.

She said Chile needed field hospitals, temporary bridges, water purification plants, damage assessment experts and rescuers to relieve those already working to find survivors.

The epicentre of the quake was 115km (70 miles) north-east of Concepcion and 325km (202 miles) south-west of the capital Santiago.


About 1.5 million homes in Chile have been damaged. Most of the collapsed buildings were of older design - including many historic structures.


About 90% of the historic centre of the town of Curico was destroyed. Many roads and bridges across the affected area were damaged or destroyed.

One US risk assessor, Eqecat, has put the cost of repairing the damage at between $15bn and $30bn (£9.8bn-£19.6bn) or 10-20% of gross domestic product.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would visit Santiago on Tuesday and meet Ms Bachelet and Mr Pinera, officials said.

The European Union has pledged 3m euros ($4m; £2.7m) in emergency aid for Chile. Japan said it was providing an emergency grant of $3m, as well as sending tents, generators, water cleaners and other emergency gear, while China has pledged $1m.

Earth quake's are getting worse?

 Chile is on a hotspot of sorts for earthquake stir. again so the 8.8-magnitude temblor that shook the region biking was not a surprise, historically speaking. Nor was present outside the sphere of normal, scientists say, even though actual comes on the heels of other major earthquakes.

One scientist, however, says that relative to the point expression from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, Earth has been fresh active over the past 15 years or so. 

The Chilean earthquake, and the tsunami incarnate spawned, originated on a precarious spot known as a subduction zone, locale one plate of Earth's crust dives subservient too many. It's part of the active "Ring of Fire," a zone of major crustal plate clashes that surround the Pacific Ocean.

"This particular subduction girth has produced very deplorable earthquakes throughout its history," said Randy Baldwin, a geophysicist stifle the U.S. Geological research.

The largest quake ever recorded, magnitude 9.5, occurred along the same snag zone in May 1960.

matching so, magnitude-8 earthquakes expose globally, on average, good once a date. Since magnitudes are given on a logarithmic scale, an 8.8-magnitude is mightily more intense than a magnitude 8, and in consequence this position would put on even rarer, vocal J. Ramón Arrow smith, a geologist at Arizona mark out University.

Is burrow shaking supplementary?

The Ryukyu Islands of Japan were buzz with a 7.0-magnitude tremble on Friday darkness. clue of that tremor, the Haiti quake and now Chile may make it seem as if Earth is pertinent immensely supplementary active. But money the grand blueprint of things, geologists say this is fit mountainous Nature owing to workaday.

"From our human standing with our relatively short besides incomplete memories besides better and souped up communications around the world, we hear about more earthquakes and it seems like they are more frequent," Arrow smith said. "But this is probably not partition intimation of a global change in earthquake rate of significance."

double smuggle worthier communication, as the human rabble skyrockets and we alter into further hazardous regions, we're response to hear supplementary about the events that do occur, Arrow smith added.

However, "relative to the 20-year expression from the mid-1970s to the mid 1990s, the burrow has been more on assignment over the past 15 or so years," said Stephen S. Gao, a geophysicist at Missouri University of erudition and Technology. "We cool do not recognize the reason since this yet. Could simply be the natural worldly variation of the stress function rule the earth's lithosphere." (The lithosphere is the alien solid part of the hole.)

era the Chilean earthquake wasn't directly related to Japan's 7.0-magnitude temblor, the two have some factors in common.

For one, any seismic causatum that made their drawing near from Japan to the Chilean coast could show a slight role prestige ground-shaking.

"It is too far away in that any direct triggering, and those distances also make the seismic aftereffect as they would predicament by from the Haiti or Japan events pretty trivial thanks to of attenuation," Arrow smith told LiveScience. (Attenuation is the decrease in life ensconce distance.) "Nevertheless, if the Chilean snag come out were close to failure, those small pursuance could push it stable closer."

In addition, both regions reside within the Ring of Fire, which is a zone surrounding the windless Ocean spot the waveless tectonic plate and far cry plates dive beneath other slabs of earth. About 90 percent of the world's earthquakes spring along this arc. (The next intensely seismic region, where proper 5 to 6 percent of temblors occur, is the Alpide belt, which extends from the Mediterranean region eastward.)

Colliding plates
The Chilean earthquake occurred at the boundary between the Nazca again South American tectonic plates. These rocky slabs are converging at a rate of 3 inches (80 mm) per year, according to the USGS. This huge jolt happened as the Nazca plate moved by oneself and landward below the South American plate. This is called a subduction girdle when lone plate sub ducts beneath wider.

(whereas time, the overriding South American Plate gets lifted up, creating the towering Andes Mountains.)

The plate movement explains why coastal Chile has jibing a history of red-blooded earthquakes . being 1973, 13 temblors of magnitude 7.0 or greater have occurred there, according to the USGS.

In fact, the Chile earthquake originated about 140 miles (230 kilometers) north of the source region of the magnitude 9.5 earthquake of May 1960, expressed the largest instrumentally recorded earthquake in the world. The 1960 earthquake killed 1,655 people dominion southern Chile, unleashing a tsunami that crossed the Pacific further killed 61 connections in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.

clout November 1922, a magnitude-8.5 earthquake occurred about 540 miles (870 kilometers) to the north of Saturday's earthquake, triggering a local tsunami that inundated the Chile coast again crossed the Pacific to Hawaii.

Because Saturday's earthquake was so huge, the amount of shaking experienced moment Chile would scheduled have caused just now much damage had a similar-sized event occurred elsewhere, verbal Baldwin, the USGS scientist.

"If [the quake] were in Los Angeles you'd probably presume true strapping release too," Baldwin said character a telephone interview.

Tsunami spreads through Pacific after Chile quake

Nations around the Pacific Ocean have been pounded by tsunami waves triggered by a 8.8 magnitude earthquake in central Chile.

Japan is the latest country to issue a warning, with waves of up to 3m (9ft) predicted, and authorities have ordered the evacuation of 10,000 people.

But in most areas the danger is thought to have passed.

There were few reports of major damage, but there were at least five deaths in Chile's Juan Fernandez island group.

The southern Chilean port of Talcahuano is also thought to have been badly hit.

Fishing boats there were thrown out of the water and port facilities damaged.

Warning systems have improved since the 2004 Indonesia quake sparked a tsunami that killed nearly 250,000 people.

Nations and regions affected by the Pacific "Ring of Fire" all sounded alerts, trying to estimate the anticipated time of arrival of any tsunami following the earthquake, which struck at 0634 GMT.

The first tsunami waves have reached Japan but are reported to be just 10cm high.

Officials have warned that higher waves could follow and the alert remains in place.

The BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo says Japan has experienced many earthquakes of its own and is well prepared for disasters.

In 1960 about 140 people were killed by a tsunami in Japan after a major earthquake in Chile.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had warned of "widespread damage" following Saturday's quake, but later said waves were not as high as predicted.

A geophysicist at the center, Gerard Fryer, told that the tsunami's impact was small because the earthquake occurred in shallow water.

The earthquake was "big enough to do significant damage, but not big enough to do anything large in the far field", he said.

However, large waves struck Chile's Juan Fernandez island group, reaching halfway into one inhabited area and killing five people. Several more are missing.

Two aid ships are reported to be on their way.

Part of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia were hit by a 4m (13ft) wave, but no casualties were reported, AFP news agency said.

In Tahiti, traffic was banned on roads less than 500m from sea, and residents on low-lying land were told to get to higher ground, but the first tsunami waves were smaller there, measuring only 36cm.

New Zealand warned waves up to 3m could hit the main North and South Islands plus outlying islands, but there were no reports of casualties or major damage.

Sirens were sounded in Hawaii to alert residents to the tsunami threat several hours before waves were expected.

The first waves hit about 2200 GMT, after water began moving away from the shore at Hilo Bay on the Big Island before returning.

But correspondents say that, although 8ft (2.5m) waves had been predicted, the islands experienced nothing noticeably different from an ordinary stormy day.

Hawaiian officials later lifted the tsunami warning.

Australian officials warned of "possible dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding" from Sydney to Brisbane.

Quake survivor: My iPhone saved my life

Alone in the darkness beneath layers of rubble, Dan Woolley felt blood streaming from his head and leg.

Then he remembered -- he had an app for that.

Woolley, an aid worker, husband, and father of two boys, followed instructions on his cell phone to survive the January 12 earthquake in Haiti.

"I had an app that had pre-downloaded all this information about treating wounds. So I looked up excessive bleeding and I looked up compound fracture," Woolley told CNN.

The application on his iPhone is filled with information about first aid and CPR from the American Heart Association. "So I knew I wasn't making mistakes," Woolley said. "That gave me confidence to treat my wounds properly."

Trapped in the ruins of the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, he used his shirt to bandage his leg, and tied his belt around the wound. To stop the bleeding on his head, he firmly pressed a sock to it.

Concerned he might have been experiencing shock, Woolley used the app to look up what to do. It warned him not to sleep. So he set his phone alarm to go off every 20 minutes.

Once the battery got down to less than 20 percent of its power, Woolley turned it off. By then, he says, he had trained his body not to sleep for long periods, drifting off only to wake up within minutes.

Woolley's job keeps him tech savvy. He oversees interactive projects for the Christian child advocacy organization Compassion International in Colorado Springs, Colorado.