This study analyzes the exposure of energy and transport assets in Asia and the Pacific to climate change and earthquake hazards and highlights how multi-hazard assessment can help strengthen the resilience
VELLORE and and its surroundings experienced mild tremors at 11.40 pm on Saturday. According to sources, the tremor, which lasted for about a minute, was felt in places like Sathuvacheri, Otteri, Shenbakkam, Kinamattom, Bagayam, Saidapet, Infantry Road and Officers Line in the Fort City. Reports about tremors in Vaniyambadi and Arni, also poured in late in the night. Deputy Inspector General of Police (Vellore Range) T P Sundaramurthy, who confirmed the mild tremors, said that police had alerted all units in the district and adjacent areas for any eventualities.
China has more dams than any other country, and many of them are in Sichuan, an earthquake-prone, mountainous region. The majority of them produce hydroelectricity. The region is well-placed to supply power to large industrial cities down the Yangtze valley, and when the dams were built this must have appeared a logical strategy. Now it looks foolhardy. Hundreds of Sichuan's dams have been damaged by the earthquake and could collapse during the coming monsoon season. (Editorial)
Workers in protective suits circled collapsed communities in trucks on Monday, spraying disinfectant on rubble from last month's massive earthquake as part of a government campaign to prevent disease outbreaks among the 5 million left homeless. Providing safe food, drinking water and temporary shelters was a priority following the May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people, the Health Ministry said. Bodies discovered in the rubble were being disinfected, ministry spokesman Mao Qun'an said in an interview posted on the central government's Web site.
Chin said on Monday it could guarantee there would be no epidemics in the eathquake zone, while some survivors complained their farmland was being bulldozed to make way for temporary housing. Where bodies crushed under buildings in the devastating May 12 tremor could not be cremated, they had been been buried deep underground and far from water sources to prevent contamination, Health Ministry spokesman Mao Qunan said. Camps had been disinfected and people warned of health risks.
The highway leading to Yingxiu, a small town near the epicenter of China's May 12 earthquake, is rent by fissures big enough to swallow a child and is choked with smashed trucks and enormous rocks. Near the town's outskirts, just past a compact car that has been crushed by a boulder, a landslide cuts off the road entirely.
A strong 6.4-magni-tude earthquake rocked the ^northern Philippines and southern parts of Taiwan early Sunday, shaking houses and prompting authorities to order some people to leave their homes. The quake struck at a depth of 22 km under the seabed in the Philippines' Batan Islands region at 0157 GMT, said the U.S. Geological Survey. There were no immediate reports of any casualties or damage and no tsunami warning was Issued. There were some weaker aftershocks and residents in some coastal areas were told to evacuate their homes.
A strong earthquake with a 6.4 magnitude struck southwest of Australia's Macquarie Island early today, the US Geological Survey said. The epicentre of the quake, which hit at 12:31am (AEDT), was 745 kilometres southwest of the remote Australian territory, which lies about 1,450 kilometres southeast of the island state of Tasmania. The US agency reported that the quake hit at a depth of 10 kilometres. There were no immediate reports of damage and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre had not issued a tsunami warning.
This manual focuses on construction of hazard resistant masonry buildings as well as restoration and retrofitting of the existing masonry buildings .It has been observed that even RCC construction is also often done in a non-engineered manner. Hence, some basic but critical information is provided on RCC construction also.
Up to 1.3 million people in China's Sichuan Province have been ordered to evacuate to higher grounds for fear of a major "quake lake' burst as a result of flooding and strong aftershocks. Tan Li, Party Secretary of Mianyang City and chief of Mianyang City Quake Control and Relief Headquarters, on Friday issued an order that people living downstream from Tangjiashan, a swelling quake-induced lake, must evacuate. The mass evacuation, dubbed a "drill' by local government officials, is said to make way for a possible flood-discharging operation set for the weekend.
China's response to quake puts India to shame When Lisbon shook in 1755, Voltaire asked if God was at all just. Why did he not instead shift the earth under London and Paris which were infinitely more sinful? When the earthquake hit Sichuan earlier this month, many Chinese too wondered if this was a divine intervention. Had they done something terribly wrong that such devastation should visit them? As the death toll began to mount, this sentiment became increasingly palpable all over China.
