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Earthquake-Related Oddities & Weirdness

millomite

Devoted Cultist
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Apr 20, 2004
Messages
184
We have just had an earthquake - Millom in Cumbria - don't know where the epicentre is - is there any news otu there?
 
Wierdly enough, a friend of mine who lives In Lancaster asked if there had been an earthquake. Myself and a friend who live in Morecambe (about 3 miles away), felt nothing at all. I assume we must be closer to Coniston, but there you go.
 
Earthquake in Cumbria felt across neighbouring counties

A small earthquake has hit Cumbria and surrounding counties.
People described hearing and feeling the earth moving for "well over a minute" just after 2300 GMT on Tuesday.

The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 3.6, was felt in locations across Cumbria and in Lancashire, south-west Scotland, parts of Yorkshire, Northumberland and the Isle of Man.

Police say there are no reports of injury or damage so far. The tremor was picked up by the US Geological Survey.

People have contacted the BBC to say they felt the tremor in places including Barrow, Sellafield, Cockermouth, Windermere and Penrith.

Cumbria Fire and Rescue service has also confirmed the quake.
A spokesman said: "We have had no requests from members of the public. At the moment, we don't believe there is any structural damage."

Data from the British Geological Survey (BGS) showed the location of the quake as Coniston, in Cumbria, 9km (5.6 miles) south-west of Ambleside and with a depth of 14.3km (8.9 miles).

David Galloway, a seismologist with the BGS, said: "We've not had any reports of any damage and it's probably unlikely that there will be damage.
"We do get a few earthquakes in this country and maybe get one of this size every 12 to 18 months, but damage is very unlikely."

Gilbert McGowan, of Castle Douglas in Dumfriesshire, told the BBC that his house "moved for 30 seconds" during the tremor, leading him to think a gas boiler had blown up or a car had hit his house.

Karen Dickinson of Caton, Lancashire, said: "The whole house shook and it was very frightening."

Neil Wilkinson, of Whitehaven, Cumbria, said the tremor "shook my house and the bed I was lying in".
He added: "It sounded briefly like a large lorry was approaching. After several seconds the tremors began and lasted for approximately two seconds."

Peter Kelly, owner of the Yewdale Hotel in Coniston, said: "We felt the earthquake. It probably lasted about 30 seconds. It was quite noticeable.
"We were just closing up the bar with a few residents in and we just felt like a bang and then a rumbling but we couldn't decide what it was.
"There's no damage but there was a heavy rumbling."

A spokeswoman for Dumfries and Galloway Fire and Rescue Service said people in its control room in Dumfries had felt a "small tremor" and there was a "bit of noise".

Susan Potter, geophysicist at the US Geological Society, said six earthquakes had been recorded within 50km of the latest quake during the past 40 years.
Of those, two have been of a magnitude of 3.7 - one in 1988 and another in 2009.
"This general region has had earthquakes of the same magnitude in the past," Ms Potter said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12056634
 
did anyone watch Mock the Week last night (22/12/2010)

had a segment about how funny it was that english police forces were doing earthquake training.

Prog went out just before 11.00pm
 
Mal_Content said:
did anyone watch Mock the Week last night (22/12/2010)

had a segment about how funny it was that english police forces were doing earthquake training.

Prog went out just before 11.00pm
Yes I did! I laughed at it and then ten minutes later I was literally quaking :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
http://www.wftv.com/news/27239681/detail.html
Geologist: Shaking Wasn't Florida Earthquake
Posted: 12:12 pm EDT March 18, 2011
Updated: 4:49 pm EDT March 18, 2011

PALM COAST, Fla. -- Investigators are trying to solve a bizarre mystery in Flagler County. A wave of people called 911 around 9:30am Friday to report the ground shaking in Flagler County. The calls all came from the Hammock area of Palm Coast (see map).

However, people in the north Daytona area, as well as in Deltona and as far north as St. Augustine, said they felt it as well. Many people were worried that the shaking was an earthquake.

The Emergency Management Office was on the phone all day trying to figure out the cause of the shaking. Residents said that buildings were shaking, and even a dispatcher in the county felt it happen.

"I live alone and I'm blind, and a while ago the house was shaking, do you happen to know?" a caller asked a 911 dispatcher.

"I'm not sure. We're actually getting quite a few calls about it now. We're having someone check it out, OK?" the dispatcher said.

The 911 call was one of about a dozen calls that poured into Flagler County. An unexplained phenomenon, described as everything from a low rumble to a window shaking movement, rattled residents from St. Augustine to the Volusia County.

"The ground rumbled and the building rumbled. Definitely abnormal for here," a resident told WFTV.

WFTV found at least two people who have experienced sonic booms and earthquakes from their time spent in California.

"That's what it felt like. It definitely felt like an earthquake," one resident said. "Enough to make you look to the ocean and say, 'OK, what's next, tsunami?' Because you're going, 'Is it an earthquake or not?'"

The U.S. Geological Survey told Flagler County that sensors in Georgia and Orlando picked up no movement. The National Weather Service reported nothing odd, and the Navy and Coast Guard told WFTV they had no information regarding on or offshore bombing exercises.

"We are checking with all the agencies that monitor those kinds of things and hopefully we'll come up with an answer, but right now, we're kind of perplexed," an official told WFTV.

Everything, from a meteor burning up to a moon phase that allows ocean waves to hit hard enough to vibrate the shoreline, is being considered as a cause.
 
This is an interesting, two-page article on the current state of earthquake prediction science:

Earthquake Prediction: Mission Impossible

http://geology.about.com/od/eq_predicti ... iction.htm

In short, earthquakes are random and chaotic events, and we will need much more geological science before EQ prediction can be on a par with weather prediction.

(There are plenty of links to related material.)
 
i predict there will be an increase in the number of earthquake predictions for the West Coast of the US.

There's a kind of symmetry. An earthquake in Christchurch, one in Japan, it seems logical that something will happen on the other side of the "Ring of Fire".

Seems logical, but isn't necessarily.

That said, I won't be terribly surprised if there is one, but I'll stop short of asserting that there will be.
 
North-east Burma hit by two 7.0 magnitude earthquakes

North-east Burma has been rocked by two 7.0 magnitude earthquakes, close to the borders with Laos and Thailand, the US Geological Survey has reported.

They struck seconds apart at 1355 GMT and were centred about 70 miles (110 km) from the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai, the agency said.

The first quake was shallow, at a depth of 6.2 miles (10km), while the second was much deeper at 142.5 miles (230km).

Tremors could be felt as far away as Bangkok and Hanoi.

The area where the quakes struck is sparsely populated and remote.

The BBC's Rachel Harvey in Bangkok said it could be a while before the extent of the damage is known.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12852237
 
Rome braces for 'prophet-predicted quake'

Thousands of people are reported to be staying out of Rome for the next few days, over fears the city will be hit by a huge earthquake.
The panic was sparked by rumours that seismologist Raffaele Bendandi, who died in 1979, predicted the city would be devastated by a quake on 11 May.

Officials have insisted quakes cannot be predicted and special programmes have run on state TV calling for calm.
But many people said they were leaving the city to be on the safe side.
There are reports of an 18% increase in the number of city employees planning to stay away from work.

"I'm going to tell the boss I've got a medical appointment and take the day off," barman Fabio Mengarelli told Reuters.
"If I have to die, I want to die with my wife and kids, and masses of people will do the same as me."

Another Roman, Tania Cotorobai, told Reuters she planned to spend Wednesday in the countryside.
"I don't know if I really believe it but if you look at the internet you see everything and the opposite of everything, and it ends up making you nervous."

Other people were more sceptical, or said they would make the most of the capital being slightly quieter.
"It's all just stupid - but anyway if it does happen it would be a good thing, tidy things up a bit," said Augusto Costa. 8)

While Franceso Verselli said that Rome would be spared because it was home to the Pope: "Wherever the Pope is, nothing will happen."

The rumours have been circulating on the streets and online for months that the Eternal City is facing imminent destruction.
They were based on work by Bendandi, who was knighted by Mussolini in 1927 for his prophetic meteorological skill.

He was said to have used his theory that the movement of the planets caused seismic activity to accurately predict a 1923 quake that killed 1,000 people.
Before he died, he pinpointed 11 May 2011 as the day Rome would be totally destroyed - to be followed by two more catastrophic events in May 2012.

Italian concerns have been heightened after the deadly quake in L'Aquila in 2009, and reports that scientists Giampaolo Giuliani had been trying to warn officials in the days before.

But the president of the Osservatorio Geofisico Comunale, the foundation that honours Bendandi, said they had no record of the much-discussed prediction and have dismissed it as an urban myth.
"I can say with absolute certainty that in the papers of Raffaele Bendandi there is no provision for an earthquake in Rome on the 11 May 2011," Paola Lagorio told Abruzzo in March.
"The date is not there, nor is the place."

Tommaso Profeta, head of Rome's civil protection services, told La Repubblica he had received a lot of calls from concerned Rome residents but that there was no danger.
"That said, our plan is to be prepared for natural disaster."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13354988
 
Tommaso Profeta, head of Rome's civil protection services, told La Repubblica he had received a lot of calls from concerned Rome residents but that there was no danger.
"That said, our plan is to be prepared for natural disaster."
...and they should listen to him, given his surname means prophet.

anyway a friend of mine who lives in rome decided to come to milan for a week or so, just in case. she says she doesn't want to wake up while her house collapses on her and think "what would have cost me me to take a fucking train?". :roll:
 
Quite a good example of mass hysteria.


(The Moon's just a day past first quarter, so if there is an earthquake we can't blame that!)
 
Rome braces for 'prophet-predicted quake'

Thousands of people are reported to be staying out of Rome for the next few days, over fears the city will be hit by a huge earthquake.
The panic was sparked by rumours that seismologist Raffaele Bendandi, who died in 1979, predicted the city would be devastated by a quake on 11 May.
Officials have insisted quakes cannot be predicted and special programmes have run on state TV calling for calm.
Experts also say there is no evidence Bendandi even made the prediction.
But many people said they were leaving the city to be on the safe side.
There are reports of an 18% increase in the number of city employees planning to stay away from work.
"I'm going to tell the boss I've got a medical appointment and take the day off," barman Fabio Mengarelli told Reuters.
"If I have to die, I want to die with my wife and kids, and masses of people will do the same as me."
Another Roman, Tania Cotorobai, told Reuters she planned to spend Wednesday in the countryside.
"I don't know if I really believe it but if you look at the internet you see everything and the opposite of everything, and it ends up making you nervous."
Other people were more sceptical, or said they would make the most of the capital being slightly quieter.
"It's all just stupid - but anyway if it does happen it would be a good thing, tidy things up a bit," said Augusto Costa.
While Franceso Verselli said that Rome would be spared because it was home to the Pope: "Wherever the Pope is, nothing will happen."

'Urban myth'

The rumours have been circulating on the streets and online for months that the Eternal City is facing imminent destruction.
They were based on work by Bendandi, who was knighted by Mussolini in 1927 for his prophetic meteorological skill.
He was said to have used his theory that the movement of the planets caused seismic activity to accurately predict a 1923 quake that killed 1,000 people.
According to the rumours, before he died he pinpointed 11 May 2011 as the day Rome would be totally destroyed - to be followed by two more catastrophic events in May 2012.
Italian concerns have been heightened after the deadly quake in L'Aquila in 2009, and reports that scientist Giampaolo Giuliani had been trying to warn officials in the days before.
But the president of the Osservatorio Geofisico Comunale, the foundation that honours Bendandi, said they had no record of the much-discussed prediction and have dismissed it as an urban myth.
"I can say with absolute certainty that in the papers of Raffaele Bendandi there is no provision for an earthquake in Rome on the 11 May 2011," Paola Lagorio told Abruzzo in March.

"The date is not there, nor is the place."

Tommaso Profeta, head of Rome's civil protection services, told La Repubblica he had received a lot of calls from concerned Rome residents but that there was no danger.

"That said, our plan is to be prepared for natural disaster."


BBC Source
 
Earthquake 5.3 - 11-05-11 SE Spain

Well, he wasn't far wrong - southeastern Spain (looks like region of Murcia) has had a 5.3 quake at 16.47 GMT today. Go to
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/ for live global earthquake updates.
 
Re: Earthquake 5.3 - 11-05-11 SE Spain

OriginalHermes said:
Well, he wasn't far wrong - southeastern Spain (looks like region of Murcia) has had a 5.3 quake at 16.47 GMT today. Go to
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/ for live global earthquake updates.

Not Rome, though. So, we're still waiting.
 
Re: Earthquake 5.3 - 11-05-11 SE Spain

SHAYBARSABE said:
OriginalHermes said:
Well, he wasn't far wrong - southeastern Spain (looks like region of Murcia) has had a 5.3 quake at 16.47 GMT today. Go to
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/ for live global earthquake updates.

Not Rome, though. So, we're still waiting.


Agreed, but still a consequence of the same plate activity, the collision of the African plate with the Eurasian plate, so quite close in global terms. Cyprus and Crete have seen significant shakes quite recently - all possibly part of the readjustment of all the plates after the Japanese event.

"Earthquake hits southern Spain, ten dead"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -dead.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13368599

Seems it's Spain's worse quake since 1956, so not an insignificant event. I'm sure some of Rome's residents may still be a little nervous over the next few days as a consequence.
 
Who, what, why: Can earthquakes be predicted?
By Megan Lane, BBC News

In Italy, Asia and New Zealand, long-range earthquake predictions from self-taught forecasters have recently had people on edge. But is it possible to pinpoint when a quake will strike?

It's a quake prediction based on the movements of the moon, the sun and the planets, and made by a self-taught scientist who died in 1979.
But on 11 May 2011, many people planned to stay away from Rome, fearing a quake forecast by the late Raffaele Bendandi - even though his writings contained no geographical location, nor a day or month.

In New Zealand too, the quake predictions of a former magician who specialises in fishing weather forecasts have caused unease.
After a 6.3 quake scored a direct hit on Christchurch in February, Ken Ring forecast another on 20 March, caused by a "moon-shot straight through the centre of the earth". Rattled residents fled the city.

Predicting quakes is highly controversial, says Brian Baptie, head of seismology at the British Geological Survey. Many scientists believe it is impossible because of the quasi-random nature of earthquakes.
"Despite huge efforts and great advances in our understanding of earthquakes, there are no good examples of an earthquake being successfully predicted in terms of where, when and how big," he says.

Many of the methods previously applied to earthquake prediction have been discredited, he says, adding that predictions such as that in Rome "have little basis and merely cause public alarm".

Seismologists do monitor rock movements around fault lines to gauge where pressure is building up, and this can provide a last-minute warning in the literal sense, says BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos.

"In Japan and California, there are scientists looking for pre-cursor signals in rocks. It is possible to get a warning up to 30 seconds before an earthquake strikes your location. That's enough time to get the doors open on a fire station, so the engines can get out as soon as it is over."
But any longer-range prediction is much harder.

"It's like pouring sand on to a pile, and trying to predict which grain of sand on which side of the pile will cause it to collapse. It is a classic non-linear system, and people have been trying to model it for centuries," says Amos.

In Japan, all eyes are on the faults that lace its shaky islands.
On Monday, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda urged that the Hamaoka nuclear plant near a fault line south-west of Tokyo be shut down, pending the construction of new tsunami defences.
Seismologists have long warned that a major earthquake is overdue in this region.

But overdue earthquakes can be decades, if not centuries, in coming. And this makes it hard to prepare, beyond precautions such as construction standards and urging the populace to lay in emergency supplies that may never be needed.

Later this year, a satellite is due to launch to test the as-yet unproven theory that there is a link between electrical disturbances on the edge of our atmosphere and impending quakes on the ground below.

Then there are the hypotheses that animals may be able to sense impending earthquakes.
Last year, the Journal of Zoology published a study into a population of toads that left their breeding colony three days before a 6.3 quake struck L'Aquila, Italy, in 2009. This was highly unusual behaviour.
But it is hard to objectively and quantifiably study how animals respond to seismic activity, in part because earthquakes are rare and strike without warning.

"At the moment, we know the parts of the world where earthquakes happen and how often they happen on average in these areas," says Dr Baptie.

This allows seismologists to make statistical estimates of probable ground movements that can be use to plan for earthquakes and mitigate their effects. "However, this is still a long way from earthquake prediction," he says.

And what of the "prophets" who claim to predict these natural disasters?
"Many regions, such as Indonesia and Japan, experience large earthquakes on a regular basis, so vague predictions of earthquakes in these places requires no great skill."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13357963
 
2 quakes in Spain kill 10, injure dozens:

"Two earthquakes struck southeast Spain in quick succession Wednesday, killing at least 10 people, injuring dozens and causing major damage to buildings, officials said. It was the highest quake-related death toll in Spain in more than 50 years."

Didn't hit Rome....or Italy for that matter, however it wasn't that far away either.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_spain_earthquake
 
soaringspirit said:
2 quakes in Spain kill 10, injure dozens:
....
Didn't hit Rome....or Italy for that matter, however it wasn't that far away either.
There are earthquakes everyday, somewhere.

But there never was a prophecy in the first place (see my bolds, above) - the whole thing was an urban legend, inflated by mass hysteria .
 
The worst predictions in history
Many Romans have fled their city after a prediction it would be hit by an earthquake. But forecasters usually get the future spectacularly wrong . . .
Patrick Barkham guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 May 2011 20.30 BST

He was knighted by Mussolini for his prophetic meteorological skills and now internet rumours have revived acclaim for Raffaele Bendandi, an Italian seismologist who died in 1979 but decided that 11 May 2011 would be the day that Rome would be obliterated by an earthquake. His theory that the movement of the planets triggered seismic activity caused him to successfully predict an earthquake that killed 1,000 people in 1923. But Paola Lagorio, president of a foundation that is dedicated to Bendandi and preserves his archives, insisted he never forecast an earthquake in Rome on 11 May 2011.

As a new book, History's Worst Predictions, by Eric Chaline, shows, everyone from ancient prophets to modern futurologists have, more often than not, got the future spectacularly wrong.

etc...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ma ... in-history
 
Re: Earthquake 5.3 - 11-05-11 SE Spain

Dr_Baltar said:
OriginalHermes said:
Well, he wasn't far wrong...

Not far wrong from what? The prediction he didn't make?

You're missing the connection made in the fortean spirit. Yeah, it's said the guy himself didn't make the prediction, but an awful lot of people were expecting an event all the same, which obligingly turned up in fairly close proximity on the day in question. Think Keel, not Killjoy :)
 
Perhaps, sometimes, 'Coming events', really do, 'cast their shadows before' ?
 
anyway, hold your breath, because the most superst - i mean, the most carefully cautious down here say it wasn't me<nt to happen on the 11th but - oooh - on friday the 13th
 
Woefully ignorant as I am about, among other things, the rules of evidence in Italian courts, I'm hopeful the prosecutors/government will be forced to present expert testimony showing that earthquakes are predictable.

Earthquake prediction can be a grave, and faulty science, and in the case of Italian seismologists who are being tried for the manslaughter of the people who died in the 2009 L'Aquila quake, it can have legal consequences.

The group of seven, including six seismologists and a government official, reportedly didn't alert the public ahead of time of the risk of the L'Aquila earthquake, which occurred on April 6 of that year, killing around 300 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/201 ... earthquake
 
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