#tsunami warnings

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Taipei, Taiwan CNN — Rescuers in Taiwan scrambled to free dozens of people trapped in highway tunnels after the island was struck by its strongest earthquake in 25 years Wednesday, killing at least nine and injuring more than 900 others.

The powerful 7.4 magnitude tremor shook the island’s east coast, hitting at 7:58 a.m. local time, 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of Hualien city and at a depth of 34.8 kilometers (21 miles), according to the US Geological Survey.

It was followed by several strong aftershocks with tremors felt across the island, including by CNN staff in the capital Taipei.

Taiwan’s National Fire Agency (NFA) said in an update on Wednesday that the death toll had risen to nine, while 934 people have been injured.

The NFA did not indicate the severity of the injuries.

Meanwhile, 75 people stranded in various tunnels in Hualien County have been rescued by emergency responders.

As of 7 a.m. Eastern Time, 137 people remain trapped.

Among those trapped were 50 employees of the Silk’s Place Hotel Taroko, who were traveling in four minibuses.

Authorities have been unable to reach them by phone and have listed them as trapped for the time being.

Two German citizens that were caught up earlier in a tunnel in Hualien County have been rescued, the NFA added.

All the deaths were in Hualien County, among them three hikers killed by falling rocks in the tourist hotspot Taroko Gorge, the NFA said.

Falling rocks also killed a truck driver in front of a tunnel on the east coast’s Suhua Highway, it added.

Reports of extensive damage have also emerged, with collapsed buildings in Hualien County, thousands of homes left without power and a major highway closed due to landslides and rockfalls, according to Taiwanese officials.

Most of those trapped are in two road tunnels in northern Hualien County, the NFA said.

Two German nationals are stranded in a third tunnel in the county, it said.

The 400-meter Jinwen Tunnel, where 60 people are trapped, is one of more than a dozen that thread the Suhua Highway, a scenic but treacherous and narrow road that runs for 118 kilometers (73 miles) along the east coast.

Meanwhile, rescuers were en route to 12 people, including two Canadians, stuck on a trail in Taroko Gorge.

Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration spokesperson warned that powerful aftershocks as high as magnitude 7 are expected to occur until the end of the week.

“There was really strong shaking… We quickly turned off the gas and electricity and opened the door. It was really strong. It felt like the house would fall down,” Taipei resident Chang Yu-lin said on CNN affiliate Taiwan Plus.

Chen Nien-tzu, also in Taipei, said, “It was really wild.”

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had an earthquake so it felt really scary,” she said on Taiwan Plus.

The quake prompted initial tsunami warnings in Taiwan, southern Japan and the Philippines, with waves less than half a meter observed along some coasts and prompting airlines to suspend flights. All tsunami warnings were later lifted.

In Taiwan, military personnel were dispatched to help with disaster relief and schools and workplaces suspended operations as aftershocks hit the island, according to the Defense Ministry.

Taiwan’s outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen said Wednesday she had ordered her administration to “immediately” get “on top of the situation and understand local impacts as soon as possible.”

Tsai also told the administration to “provide necessary assistance and work together with local governments to minimize the impact of the disaster.”

Taiwan, a self-ruled island east of mainland China, is home to about 23 million people, most of whom live in the industrialized cities of its west coast, including the capital.

The island is regularly rocked by earthquakes due to its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, which runs around the edge of the Pacific Ocean and causes massive seismic and volcanic activity from Indonesia to Chile.

Wednesday’s quake is the strongest to hit Taiwan since 1999, according to the Central Weather Administration.

That year, a 7.7 magnitude quake hit south of Taipei, killing 2,400 people and injuring 10,000 others.

Hualien County, parts of which are mountainous and remote, is home to about 300,000 people on the island’s sparsely populated east coast.

A magnitude 6.2 quake hit near the area in 2018, killing at least 17 people and injuring more than 300 others.

Collapsed buildings, highway damaged

The full extent of the damage is still being assessed, with road and rail closures curtailing access to the quake’s epicenter in Hualien County.

More than 100 buildings were damaged across the island, the National Fire Agency said, with about half of those in Hualien County.

Search and rescue operations were ongoing Wednesday afternoon at the nine-story Uranus Building that had partially collapsed, trapping residents, Hualien County Magistrate Hsu Chen-wei told reporters.

So far, 22 people had been rescued from the building, according to the NFA.

More than 91,000 households are without electricity, according to Taiwan’s Central Emergency Command Center.

The government-operated Taipower Company is working to restore power, it added.

Footage posted on social media showed several collapsed buildings in Hualien and residents helping trapped people escape through the window of a damaged apartment complex.

The quake struck during the morning rush hour, with videos showing vehicles bouncing on a vigorously shaking highway, an overpass swaying in Taipei, and commuters struggling to stand inside a juddering Taipei metro train.

Meanwhile, video broadcast by CNN affiliate TVBS showed cellphone and security camera footage of the moment tremors struck homes and businesses across the island.

One clip showed power lines swaying violently above a street and another saw chandeliers shaking in a restaurant.

Large boulders could be seen strewn across the eastern Suhua Highway, with several tunnels broken — including one split in half, TVBS footage showed.

CNN affiliate SET News shows the front of a car smashed by fallen rocks.

Transport authorities recorded at least nine rockfalls and landslides on the highway, which has been closed to traffic.

Another highway connecting the west coast with eastern Taiwan was also damaged by falling rocks, with at least 12 cars hit and nine people injured, TVBS reported.

Tsunami waves

The quake sparked tsunami warnings across the region as authorities ordered evacuations.

In Taiwan’s Chenggong, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of the quake’s epicenter, waves reached almost half a meter.

The Central Weather Administration advised residents to evacuate to higher ground.

The Japan Meteorological Agency also issued a tsunami alert for the southern Miyakojima and Okinawa islands, warning of waves up to 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) high.

A 30-centimeter (nearly 1 foot) wave impacted Okinawa, the first tsunami observed there in 26 years, the agency said.

Several hours later, the US Tsunami Warning Center said the tsunami threat had “largely passed” but people in coastal areas should remain alert.

All flights from Okinawa and Kagoshima prefectures were suspended following the tsunami warnings in the area, Japan Airlines said.

Okinawa’s Naha airport resumed flights after the tsunami warning was downgraded to an advisory, airport spokesperson Hideaki Tsurudo told CNN.

[sunrisemill]

I’m bouta bust holy shit

[kedreeva]

Tsunami warning west coast USA

If you're on the Cali/Oregon coast, a 7.0 earthquake hit off shore, and there's a tsunami warning for your area. I know many of us don't look at local news much, so this is your heads up to check in on them and see if you're going to be affected.

From the report:

Tsunami Warning in Effect for;

* CALIFORNIA, The coast from Davenport, California (10 miles NW of Santa Cruz) to The Oregon/Cal. Border including San Francisco Bay

* OREGON, The coast from The Oregon/Cal. Border to Douglas/Lane Line, Oregon (10 miles SW of Florence)

https://tsunami.gov/events/PAAQ/2024/12/05/so1aq0/2/WEAK51/WEAK51.txt

Please stay safe!

[made2wait]

DROP THEM DRAWSSSS 🗣️‼️‼️

[pixierainbows]

Warning for everybody in Washington state .

[reasonsforhope]

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

With Spain and Portugal saying that hundreds of people have died from the heat waves sweeping through Europe this month, the longer-term view might come as a surprise. Over the past 50 years, the number of deaths attributed to weather-related disasters has actually fallen. Yes, you heard that right. The World Meteorological Organization says that the number of disasters has increased five times over the past 50 years, but the number of fatalities has fallen by two-thirds. Vox climate writer Umair Irfan has delved into this paradox and joins us now. Welcome to the program, Umair.

UMAIR IRFAN: Thanks for having me, Ayesha.

RASCOE: So how can this be? Like, how can the number of deaths be falling even though we hear the news, we see the disasters? You know, seas are rising, summers are hotter, hurricanes seem to be getting stronger. So how is it possible that deaths can be down?

IRFAN: Well, there are two main factors here. One is better forecasting - basically being able to get ahead of these disasters and then hopefully being able to get people out of harm's way. So that's really prominent with things like hurricanes and heat waves. We can actually see those things days in advance. The other side of the equation is how well we can cope with things like storms, fires and heat waves when they do occur. So we have better tools - things like sea walls. We have better building codes. We have firefighting teams that can get people out of fire zones. And so between those two aspects - you know, the better forecasting and the better tools - we've been able to avert a lot of deaths, even though the global population has grown about fourfold since the start of the 20th century.

RASCOE: Are the technological advances that you're talking about available even in less-developed areas?

IRFAN: It's not, unfortunately. And you're hitting on a very important point. You know, the WMO pointed out that about 90% of disaster-related fatalities that occur today are occurring in developing countries. And there's a huge gap in terms of being able to anticipate these disasters before they occur and being able to respond to them and being able to rebuild in their aftermath. And that really is a big shortfall that a lot of world leaders are starting to get concerned about...

You know, the World Meteorological Organization, they launched this initiative to basically say that they want the whole world covered by disaster early warning systems over the next five years. And they think that this is something that's going to be taking a big bite out of the fatalities and the casualties caused by these disasters. So I think it's worth highlighting the progress that's made, but also the progress that we still need to make.

-via NPR, July 17, 2022

Thanks so much to @gardening-tea-lesbian for the link!

[alaa-al-khateeb]

Rafah crossing will open in a few days for travel from Gaza, Palestine.

Please My friends, Donate to us & share our story with your friends so that we can travel from Gaza, rent a house & start a new, safe life & future.

£31,132/£38,000

[shocotate]

My previous October 3rd posts: 1 | 2 | 3

Happy October 3rd! This time I want to post something from way in the past, a photo from Shounen Gangan, the day the final chapter leaked on June 7, 2010.

Particularly Roy because that’s what everyone wants to see. Some people may think Roy had a moustache in the first editions of Chapter 108, but thankfully he’s been moustache-free this whole time :)

ロイ大将とホークアイ

General Roy and Hawkeye

The animators probably got a very early draft or something, since it also in the storyboard. Before the anime got one extra episode, it was meant to end on June 27, compared to the manga chapter's street date of June 11.

Oh also, I wonder if May's pose in the final photo is meant to be reminiscent of Al's new philosophy about Equivalent Exchange that he mentions earlier in the chapter.

(the leaker did not post this page, so I have to use a real screenshot)

[zinjanthropusboisei]

Earthquake offshore northern California, M7 at about 10:44 am PST (12/5/24); there's currently a tsunami warning from Douglas, Oregon to Davenport, California:

If you're on the west coast get your "Did You Feel It" reports in!

[millionsknives]

RAAAAAAAA CALIFORNIA 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯💯💯💯🫨🫨🫨🫨 WTF IS STABLE GROUND

[69thatstheweednumber]

hot lilo and stitch remake take why the fuck are you expecting these hollow cynical entirely brand-name-recognition profit driven live action remakes by a trillion dollar corporation to have any artistic value whatsoever and also why are you acting like the entirely predictable failures and shortcomings of these works are some sinister malicious plot with ulterior motives beyond "brand name recognition minimum effort recognizable ip cash grab"

[destielmemenews]

"The earthquake, which had a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), struck at 4:10 p.m. local time around 42 kilometers (26 miles) northeast of Anamizu in Ishikawa prefecture, according to USGS."

source 1

source 2

source 3

[bookwyrmbran]

Tsunami Warning for Bay Area

Thursday Dec 5, 2024

if you are in the Bay Area check your phones! tsunami is expected between 12-12:15. screenshot is from tsunami.gov

[perhaps-mr-collins-has-a-cousin]

not AGAIN

[okcoolthanks]

It’s rlly funny having an emergency thing go off and then turning yours off to hear everyone else’s go off too

[srrybabe]

is a higher power trying to push SF off the map how is there another tsunami warning there