The quake caused several buildings in Ercis to collapse, trapping an unknown number of citizens in the debris.

Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) — Battling near-freezing temperatures and darkness, rescue workers and residents in eastern Turkey early Monday scoured the wreckage wrought by the country’s most-powerful earthquake in more than a decade, hoping to find survivors.

They used flashlights, shovels, heavy machinery and their hands to lift the debris, and climbed over collapsed buildings in search of victims.

At least 217 people were killed in Sunday’s quake, said Turkish Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin, the Anatolian news agency reported Monday. The previous official toll was 138.

Another 350 people were injured in the quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey said had a magnitude of 7.2.

Roughly 20 aftershocks rattled eastern Turkey in one of the nation’s poorest areas. The largest had a magnitude of 6.0.

One hundred people were killed in Van, while 117 were killed in Ercis, said Sahin, the Anatolian news agency reported. It also said that schools will be closed for a week in Van.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters the death toll is likely to climb, as rescue teams work through the night to save people still trapped in the rubble.

The prime minister said 55 buildings collapsed in Ercis on the north shore of Lake Van, while the Turkish Red Crescent had said earlier that some 25 apartment buildings and a student dormitory collapsed in the town.

Local rescuers took many wounded people out of the dormitory, a Red Crescent statement said, without saying exactly how many.

A health services building also collapsed, along with part of a hospital, CNN sister network CNN Turk reported. The injured were being treated in the hospital’s garden.

“People are really scared,” said CNN Turk reporter Nevsin Mengu. “The survivors are now trying to survive the cold weather.”

She said many residents are not returning to their houses, but sleeping on rooftops or in the streets. It was not clear whether their homes were uninhabitable, or whether they were just too frightened. Electricity and natural gas were off in most of the city.

Speaking from Van, Mengu said the death toll is almost sure to rise, as rescue teams have not yet reached some of the smaller villages. Trucks carrying medical aid and food were seen driving into Van.

Official rescue efforts were also under way in Ercis, said CNN Turk reporter Sevda Incesu, but residents were conducting efforts of their own. Ambulances were having trouble getting into town because the roads were littered with debris, she said.

Residents of Ercis, Turkey, gather around fires in the aftermath of a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that rocked the city on Sunday.

The Red Crescent called for rescue workers, machinery and drinking water. A crisis center was set up by the country’s Health Ministry in the Turkish capital, Ankara.

Health Minister Recep Akdag said an air ambulance and several helicopters would go to the quake zone.

Rescue teams of about 500 people were on the ground, according to the crisis center, and additional aid teams were dispatched from 29 surrounding cities. Medical helicopters were transporting the injured to hospitals in other provinces, the center said.

Two tent hospitals were being set up in Ercis, and two cargo planes were dispatched from the capital carrying medical teams and aid.

A seven-story building collapsed on Kazim Karabekir Street in the city of Van, and more buildings were reduced to rubble the village of Tabanli in Van province, the Anatolian news agency said. It was unknown how many people were trapped.

Prime Minister Erdogan and Health Minister Akdag arrived in the area Sunday, according to the Ministry of Health’s crisis center.

Israel offered Turkey “any help it may require” after the earthquake, Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s office said. Israel and Turkey, once close allies, saw a deterioration in relations in a dispute over an Israeli naval commando raid on the Gaza-bound ship Mavi Marmara, in which nine Turkish activists were killed.

Other nations and organizations offered condolences and assistance to Turkey.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the brave men and women who are working to bring assistance to this stricken region,” U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement. “We stand shoulder to shoulder with our Turkish ally at this difficult time, and are ready to assist the Turkish authorities.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a similar statement.

A spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the country, while grateful for offers of aid, is prepared to handle the disaster on its own.

Turkey is “no stranger to having these seismic events,” but Sunday’s quake is considered major, CNN Meteorologist Reynolds Wolf reported.

A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Izmit, Turkey, killed more than 17,000 people in 1999, according to the USGS. A magnitude 7.2 tremor in Duzce the same year killed 894 people, the USGS reported.

Sunday’s major quake hit at 1:41 p.m. local time.

It took place about 12 miles from Van, the USGS said.

The USGS reported a depth of 4.5 miles, or 7.2 kilometers; the center in Turkey said the quake was about 3 miles, or 5 kilometers, deep.

CNN’s Guy Azriel, Talia Kayali and Hande Atay contributed to this report.
[source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/23/world/europe/turkey-earthquake/?hpt=wo_c2]

The post Death toll rises to 217 after massive earthquake in Turkey appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).

juesatta awakening foundation logo (draft)

Swallowed By The Sea (illustrated by Tomer Hanuka)

Dear friends, thank you for your kindness and support. We’ve just made a third transaction of USD150.00 to International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for Japan quake relief.

Through the generous contribution by all friends and family, we have collected a total amount of more than RM1,300.00 to date for the relief effort in Japan. Thank you for your generosity and kindness by helping those are suffering from the devastating effects of the recent 8.9 earthquake and tsunami.

Together we hope and pray for all in Japan as well as all other countries to be affected by this event and that the recovery will be swift and complete.

In addition, another 7.4 powerful quake just struck Japan yesterday. Fortunately destructive tsunami is not expected according to The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

May all beings be happy.

The post Third transaction for Japan quake relief to IFRC appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).

A fishy tale: It seems almost too good to be true, but this little dog seems to have survived against all odds and was discovered by coastguards floating on a raft at sea

It appears almost too good to be true, but this little dog has been found alive and well adrift at sea, an astonishing three weeks after the tsunami that devastated Japan.

Members of the Japan Coast Guard came across the dog on Friday as they were conducting an aerial search of the area.

Local television showed pictures of the dog scampering around the roof of the house before it disappeared inside through a hole in the roof.

Rescuers had hoped to find more tsunami survivors living inside the house but after tearing the roof open, it was found to be empty apart from the dog.

Despite its three weeks at sea, the medium-sized brown dog seemed to be in reasonably good condition considering its ordeal.

The discovery of the dog is a rare glimmer of hope in Japan where thousands of people are believed to have perished in the disaster.

The nation is now gripped by the ongoing nuclear threat posed by the unstable Fukushima plant as workers continue to battle to restore vital cooling systems damaged by the quake.

Against all odds: The dog appears to have survived by clinging to a house that had been swept away by the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11

Safe and hound: A member of the Japan Coast Guard comforts the dog that seems to have survived an amazing three weeks at sea following the devastating tsunami

The post Hope floats: tsunami dog found after drifting in ocean for 3 weeks appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).

Japan earthquake victims (photo: www.news.com.au)

我像一个等着看好戏的观众，看着海啸前进的片段。

长长的地震摇晃后，我按捺着颤抖的手，抓起电视遥控器。老公每次地震后都那么做。我们母子三人躲到桌子下，余震强烈，电视屏幕闪着海啸警报。东京湾的船只匆匆往岸边驶，海岸线升高，向陆地蔓延，几十分钟后，海水慢慢侵袭陆地，掩盖道路，缓缓往房子去。我像旁观者，情绪高亢，却没有多少恐慌，这一切对我来说很新鲜。或许是角度问题，从天空鸟瞰，海浪看起来那么温柔优雅，又或许，我比较愿意袖手旁观，因为这里不是我的国家。

当然那时谁都没想到情况会这么恶劣。

两天后，我发现自己身在挤满顾客的超市里。地震、海啸、停电和核漏，人们开始惊慌，大量采购。我也跟着紧张，女儿的牛奶最重要。于是惶惶跑向冷藏区，差点撞上一个老人，我闪了一下，继续往前小跑，然后把购物车装得满满，安心结帐去。我排入队伍，开始环视周围，却发现没有人推挤，没有人急得跑着抢货，人人虽然神色匆忙，却还有秩序有自律。

Japan earthquake victims (web photo)

我站着，双颊发烫，实在羞愧。

然后我开始发觉自己已被卷入这场灾害，不再是一个旁观者。

灾害没有停止，汽油短缺，辐射物质泄漏，人心惶惶。我继续每天往超市钻，扛回罐头、水、干粮、厕纸、蜡烛等，几天下来，家里堆满了备用品。

直到我读到这样一则短讯：

“不要大量采购。这些东西可能是要送上东北区。我们还有三餐美味，灾区的灾民一天只有一个饭团。”

消息可能不确实，我却确确实实看到了自己的私欲与邪恶。

如果还有什么能让我更羞耻，那便是打开电视。灾区的女人在破残且空无一物的便利店里为孩子买到几个没被水冲走的零食，她对着镜头说：“能买到这些太感谢了，深僻的地方还有许多被困着的人们，请你们救救他们。”她转身拭擦眼角的泪水。

许多灾民在镜头前说他们的感受，“有这些食物，已经很感恩了”，“这种情形也是没有法子的”，“这样更要加油”。

怎么都没有抱怨？

我明白了，这大概就是彻底的团体精神。一个国家，一个人民，一个思想。

我不得不重新计量住了8年的地方，我重新认识自己以为很了解的大和民族。

原本一个骇人的灾难，却让我看到了一个勇敢美丽的民族，一个强稳的社会结构，还有一个丑陋自私的我。

晚上，我拿起一个红豆馒头，想扔进垃圾桶，却犹豫了一下。我最不喜欢这东西，平常家婆送来，我随手就丢了。但是今晚，我重新放回冰箱。为了灾区的人民，我会珍惜食物。

The post 地震之后 appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).

juesatta awakening foundation logo (draft)

Thank you friends for your kindness. We’ve made a second donation of RM400.00 to Taiwan Buddhist Tzu-Chi Foundation Malaysia.

After the 8.9 quake and subsequent tsunami, the people of Japan are short of many things, such as petrol and food. The members of Tzu-Chi will overcome all kinds of hurdles and deliver hot food into the hands of those in difficulty. The money donated will be used entirely for emergency relief and for long-term construction as Japan clears the rubble and prepares to rebuild.

Thank you and may we keep Japan in our prayers. We will make third trasnfer soon and friends who are wishing to donate, kindly contact us.

May all beings be happy.

Members of the international non-profit organisation, the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, bow their heads as they collect donations in Sydney (photo: AFP)

Young and old, volunteers prepares the relief goods to ship to Japan. (Photo by Chien Shi-si; date: 03/13/2011; location: Jing Si Abode, Hualien, Taiwan)

The residents and volunteers pray together. (Photo by Chen Wei-chun; date: 03/16/2011; location: Oarai, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan)

Tzu Chi volunteers provide hot meals for the second day. (Photo by Hsiao Chi-jen; date: 03/17/2011; location: Oarai, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan)

The post Second donation for Japan quake relief to Tzu-Chi appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).

juesatta awakening foundation logo (draft)

Thank you friends for your support, we have made our first transfer of USD 150.00 donation to International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for Japan quake relief.

Our donation will support the rescue works in Japan. And, we must give a deep bow of immense gratitude to all the volunteers’ efforts to respond to the emergency relief. There are many rescue workers or emergency workers risk their lives and some even sacrificed themselves! Many stories of heroism are reported such as one as reported by Japanese journalist Chie Matsumoto:

“People received the warning through the city speakers that are set up outside. They heard, ‘A big tsunami is coming. You need to evacuate.’ Shortly after, they heard, ‘Run!’

“The announcement was cut off and the people never heard from the speakers, or the people who announced it, again. The few people assigned to announce it were at the disaster prevention center, and they went missing.

“They sacrificed their lives to send everyone else to a safer place. They gave priority to others’ safety. The disaster prevention center is now under the mud brought on by the tsunami.”

Although we are not on the ground to help like them nor to be like them, we can still send out our prayers to give them (both rescuers and victims) hope and strength in the face of this terrible catastrophe.

Thank you again and we will soon to make a second transfer. Friends who wish to contribute, kindly contact us. Sharing some photos taken from Red Cross flickr:

Those who have suffered near drowning are wrapped in blankets and then plastic sheeting to keep them both warm ad dry before being transported to Ishinomaki Red Cross hospital for treatment. (Photograph: Toshirharu Kato, Japanese Red Cross)

For some of the youngest patients, who may be particularly vulnerable, special care must be provided, however warm skin and a kind voice, together with a watchful eye can go a long way to ensure a speedy recovery. (Photograph: Toshirharu Kato, Japanese Red Cross)

One week after the earthquake struck and tsunami surged through, a Japanese Red Cross volunteer surveys the damage to Otsuchi in Iwate prefecture. (Photograph: Japanese Red Cross Society)

Technicians scan Red Cross rescue workers for signs of radiation in Nagahama City, Shiga Prefecture in northern Japan, after an earthquake and tsunami struck the area, March 14, 2011. (Photograph: Reuters/Kyodo)

The post First transfer of donation for Japan quake relief to IFRC appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).

love.peace

Last month, February was a very busy and hectic month for mEE, nothing but work. The pace of life is going back to normal in early March and I can have more updates on juesatta.

Having said that, a series of fortunate events have just happened in Japan, earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown tragically claim countless human lives and destroy the livelihoods of many others including wildlife and ecosystems. And the latest update of today,

The toll of Japan’s triple disaster came into clearer focus Monday after police estimates showed more than 18,000 people died, the World Bank said rebuilding may cost $235 billion and more cases of radiation-tainted vegetables and tap water turned up. (yahoo.com)

More work has to be done here such as to increase awareness of the need for aid after natural disasters. And we’re grateful that everyone is standing together in such difficult moment and is giving a hand. Each of us make a difference and together we’re powerful.

Besides the quake, war has also begun in Libya when US coalition forces launched strikes on Libya to degrade its air defense yesterday. Despite the goals of US coalition forces to protect the people of Libya, Libyan government claimed that allied attacks on Sunday have killed innoncent civilians. It was not immediately clear what targets had been hit but we do hope that Libya can return to stability as soon as possible and its problems can be resolved peacefully.

May you find serenity here and we hope that the victims in Japan and people in Libya to peace, and survive. May all beings bEE happy.

Sharing some shots taken in Melaka within these two months.

demolish

"I'm watching you"

seven

duet (traditional Malay performance)

dine

ambitious

heading home

Masjid Selat Melaka (Malacca Straits Mosque)

fire fighters

The post February.March 2011 appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).

juesatta awakening foundation logo (draft)

A huge 8.9 earthquake, subsequent tsunami, and nuclear meltdown struck Japan on March 11th at 2:46 pm, causing immeasurable human suffering and physical damage. Officials say at least 10,000 people were killed, many more are still missing or injured, and millions are without food, water, power in Japan.

Major disasters always require a huge amount of international support to provide relief and long term recovery efforts. Japan, being one of the world’s most generous nations, has always donated when other countries have experienced disasters. In these, their days of greatest need now, we stand ready and are eager to help the Japanese in this time of great trial.

I’ve received calls these two days from friends who  have expressed their sympathy and wish of helping those who are at risk in Japan now. We are getting the assessments by the reputable aid organisations such as Red Cross, Tzu Chi, World Vision, Salvation Army and those already have a presence in the impacted area and their response will likely be faster and more efficinet than other organizations that are not on the ground.

Right now, while waiting and see how the relief situation develops, we express our heartfelt sympathy for the tragic loss and are ready to assist the reputable aid organisations. Friends, you can make a donation to well-known charitable organisations or through us as we are collecting fund and will make the transfer next week to the organisations mentioned that are working on relief and recovery in the region.

A woman cries amid the destruction in Natori, Japan (Reuters photo)

Residents walk along a path overlooking shattered homes from the tsunami in Kesen Numa, Miyagi Prefecture. (Reuters photo)

A man surveys the damage in Minami Sanriku, a town in Miyago Prefecture, on Tuesday, March 15. (AFP/Getty photo)

A Self Defense Forces soldier holds a 4-month-old baby in Ishinomaki city in Miyagi prefecture Monday. The child survived the tsunami with her family. (AFP/Getty photo)

The post juesatta awakening foundation: japan quake relief mission launched appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).

A massive tsunami engulfs a residential area in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture in northeastern Japan. (photo by Reuters/Kyodo)

TOKYO – A ferocious tsunami unleashed by Japan’s biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday, killing hundreds of people as it carried away ships, cars and homes, and triggered widespread fires that burned out of control.

Hours later, the tsunami hit Hawaii but did not cause major damage. Warnings blanketed the Pacific, putting areas on alert as far away as South America, Canada, Alaska and the entire U.S. West coast. In northeastern Japan, the area around a nuclear power plant was evacuated after the reactor’s cooling system failed.

Tsunami waves swirl near a port in Oarai, Ibaraki Prefecture (state) after Japan was struck by a strong earthquake off its northeastern coast Friday, March 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Kyodo News)

Police said 200 to 300 bodies were found in the northeastern coastal city of Sendai, the city in Miyagi prefecture, or state, closest to the epicenter. Another 137 were confirmed killed, with 531 people missing. Police also said 627 people were injured.

The magnitude-8.9 offshore quake unleashed a 23-foot (seven-meter) tsunami and was followed for hours by more than 50 aftershocks, many of them of more than magnitude 6.0.

Dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of coastline were shaken by violent tremors that reached as far away as Tokyo, hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the epicenter. A large section of Kesennuma, a town of 70,000 people in Miyagi, burned furiously into the night with no apparent hope of being extinguished, public broadcaster NHK said.

Koto Fujikawa, 28, was riding a monorail when the quake hit and had to later pick her way along narrow, elevated tracks to the nearest station.

“I thought I was going to die,” Fujikawa, who works for a marketing company, said. “It felt like the whole structure was collapsing.”

Scientists said the quake ranked as the fifth-largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and was nearly 8,000 times stronger than one that devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month.

“The energy radiated by this quake is nearly equal to one month’s worth of energy consumption” in the United States, U.S. Geological Survey Scientist Brian Atwater told The Associated Press.

As night fell and temperatures hovered just above freezing, tens of thousands of people remained stranded in Tokyo, where the rail network was still down. The streets were jammed with cars, buses and trucks trying to get out of the city.

The city has set up 33 shelters in city hall, on university campuses and in government offices, but many planned to spend the night at 24-hour cafes and hotels.

Tomoko Suzuki and her elderly mother stood on a crowded downtown corner, unable to get to their 29th-floor condominium because the elevator wasn’t working. They couldn’t find a taxi to go to a relative’s house and nearby hotels were booked.

“We are so cold,” said Suzuki. “We really don’t know what to do.”

The government ordered thousands of residents near a nuclear power plant in the city of Onahama to move back at least two miles (three kilometers) from the plant. The reactor was not leaking radiation but its core remained hot even after a shutdown. The plant is 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.

The Defense Ministry said it had dispatched dozens of troops trained to deal with chemical disaster to the plant in case of radiation leak.

Trouble was reported at two other nuclear plants as well, but there was no radiation leak at either of them.

Japan’s coast guard said it was searching for 80 dock workers on a ship that was swept away from a shipyard in Miyagi.

Even for a country used to earthquakes, this one was of horrific proportions because of the tsunami that crashed ashore, swallowing everything in its path as it surged several miles (kilometers) inland before retreating. The apocalyptic images on Japanese TV of powerful, debris-filled waves, uncontrolled fires and a ship caught in a massive whirlpool resembled scenes from a Hollywood disaster movie.

Large fishing boats and other vessels rode high waves ashore, slamming against overpasses or scraping under them and snapping power lines along the way. Upturned and partially submerged cars bobbed in the water. Ships anchored in ports crashed against each other.

The tsunami roared over embankments, washing anything in its path inland before reversing directions and carrying the cars, homes and other debris out to sea. Flames shot from some of the homes, probably because of burst gas pipes.

Waves of muddy waters flowed over farmland near Sendai, carrying buildings, some of them ablaze. Drivers attempted to flee. Sendai airport was inundated with thick, muddy debris that included cars, trucks, buses and even light planes.

Highways to the worst-hit coastal areas buckled. Telephone lines snapped. Train service in northeastern Japan and in Tokyo, which normally serve 10 million people a day, were suspended, leaving untold numbers stranded in stations or roaming the streets. Tokyo’s Narita airport was closed indefinitely.

President Barack Obama said the U.S. “stands ready to help” Japan.

Jesse Johnson, a native of the U.S. state of Nevada who lives in Chiba, north of Tokyo, was eating at a sushi restaurant with his wife when the quake hit.

“At first it didn’t feel unusual, but then it went on and on. So I got myself and my wife under the table,” he told The Associated Press. “I’ve lived in Japan for 10 years, and I’ve never felt anything like this before. The aftershocks keep coming. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t know whether it’s me shaking or an earthquake.”

NHK said more than 4 million buildings were without power in Tokyo and its suburbs.

A large fire erupted at the Cosmo oil refinery in the city of Ichihara and burned out of control with 100-foot (30-meter) flames whipping into the sky.

“Our initial assessment indicates that there has already been enormous damage,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said. “We will make maximum relief effort based on that assessment.”

He said the Defense Ministry was sending troops to the hardest-hit region. A utility aircraft and several helicopters were on the way.

Also in Miyagi prefecture, a fire broke out in a turbine building of a nuclear power plant, but it was later extinguished, said Tohoku Electric Power Co.

A reactor area of a nearby plant was leaking water, the company said. But it was unclear if the leak was caused by the tsunami or something else. There were no reports of radioactive leaks at any of Japan’s nuclear plants.

Jefferies International Ltd., a global investment banking group, estimated overall losses of about $10 billion.

Hiroshi Sato, a disaster management official in northern Iwate prefecture, said officials were having trouble getting an overall picture of the destruction.

“We don’t even know the extent of damage. Roads were badly damaged and cut off as tsunami washed away debris, cars and many other things,” he said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 2:46 p.m. quake was magnitude 8.9, the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s and one of the biggest ever recorded in the world.

The quake struck at a depth of six miles (10 kilometers), about 80 miles (125 kilometers) off the eastern coast, the agency said. The area is 240 miles (380 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. Several quakes hit the same region in recent days, including one measured at magnitude 7.3 on Wednesday that caused no damage.

A tsunami warning was extended to a number of areas in the Pacific, Southeast Asia and Latin America, including Japan, Russia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Chile. In the Philippines, authorities ordered an evacuation of coastal communities, but no unusual waves were reported.

Thousands fled homes in Indonesia after officials warned of a tsunami up to 6 feet (2 meters) high, but waves of only 4 inches (10 centimeters) were measured. No big waves came to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, either.

The first waves hit Hawaii about 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT). A tsunami about 7 feet (2.1 meters) high was recorded on Maui and a wave at least 3 feet (a meter) high was recorded on Oahu and Kauai. Officials warned that the waves would continue and could get larger.

Japan’s worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 temblor in 1923 in Kanto that killed 143,000 people, according to USGS. A 7.2-magnitude quake in Kobe in 1995 killed 6,400 people.

Japan lies on the “Ring of Fire” — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world’s quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 nations. A magnitude-8.8 temblor that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.

By MALCOLM FOSTER, Associated Press writers Jay Alabaster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo; Jaymes Song in Honolulu and Mark Niesse in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Seth Borenstein in New York contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS that the Kobe quake was in 1995, not 1996.)

The post Hundreds killed in tsunami after 8.9 Japan quake appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).

Tibetan monks attend a mass prayer for earthquake victims in the quake-hit Gyegu town of Yushu county, Qinghai province April 20, 2010. China will hold a national day of mourning for victims of an earthquake in the country's western region, the government announced on Tuesday, as the official death toll from the disaster climbed to 2,039, state media reported. REUTERS/Stringer

BEIJING (Reuters) – Horns and sirens sounded and crowds bowed their heads in mourning on Wednesday in the western Chinese province where an earthquake a week ago devastated the heavily Tibetan county of Yushu.

The official death toll from the magnitude 6.9 quake that shook a remote, mountainous corner of Qinghai province last Wednesday has reached 2,183, with 84 people still missing, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Most of the dead were ethnic Tibetans in Yushu’s main town of Gyegu, about 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) above sea level on the wind-swept Tibetan highlands.

At 10 a.m. (0200 GMT), ranks of residents, troops and officials in Gyegu and in Qinghai’s provincial capital Xining bowed their heads for three minutes while sirens and horns sounded, according to Chinese state television footage.

Television showed the nine members of the ruling Communist Party’s most powerful inner circle, the Politburo Standing Committee, led by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, standing around a conference table with their heads bowed.

In Gyegu, residents and Buddhist monks also assembled on a hill above the town where hundreds of victims’ bodies were cremated last week, said Nami, one of the thousands of ethnic Tibetan monks who joined relief work in the town.

“We went to remember them, but now we have to focus on helping the survivors and rebuilding Gyegu,” he said by telephone. “People are very sad. They will be for a long time.”

Survivors camping at a sports ground and other sites in Gyegu also gathered to mourn while sirens sounded, the China News Service reported.

Qinghai earthquake 2010 killed thousands

LATEST BLOW

The earthquake has been the latest heavy blow to this huge country where tremors, floods and droughts often strike.

A quake rocked the southwestern province of Sichuan in May 2008, killing at least 80,000 people, with thousands more unaccounted for and most likely dead.

But China’s ruling Communist Party has also used the disaster to demonstrate its ability to surmount natural disasters, and to rally citizens with a call of patriotic unity — a message that has given little attention to the role of Tibetan Buddhist monks in rescue efforts.

The Tibetan highlands have seen tensions between Tibetan residents resentful of central government policies and the Han Chinese presence, including deadly unrest in 2008, but Yushu was not among the places convulsed by major protest.

Three people in Gyegu told Reuters that government officials there were pressing monks from elsewhere to return to their home monasteries, and that some from the southwest provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, as well as from the Tibetan Autonomous Region, had been prevented from entering.

“The government has told them to go back. Some are willing to, and some are under orders,” said one of them, a monk who asked that his name not be used, fearing recriminations.

Liu Wei, a spokesman for the Yushu government rescue effort, said he had not heard of any orders directed at monks. But authorities had to ensure some control of volunteers coming to the isolated town, he said.

“Because of the high altitude and difficult transport here, people coming without any planning can affect our work,” he said.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley and Huang Yan; Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison and Sanjeev Miglani)
[source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100421/ts_nm/us_quake_china_3]

The post [News] Day of mourning for China’s earthquake victims appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).

Thousands feared dead in Haiti quake; many trapped (Yahoo news photo)

 PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haitians piled bodies along the devastated streets of their capital Wednesday after a powerful earthquake flattened the president’s palace, the cathedral, hospitals, schools, the main prison and whole neighborhoods. Officials feared hundreds of thousands may have perished but there was no firm count. 

Haiti 2010 quake (wikipedia.com photo)

Death was everywhere in Port-au-Prince. Bodies of tiny children were piled next to schools. Corpses of women lay on the street with stunned expressions frozen on their faces as flies began to gather. Bodies of men were covered with plastic tarps or cotton sheets. 

President Rene Preval said he believes thousands were killed in Tuesday afternoon’s magnitude-7.0 quake, and the scope of the destruction prompted other officials to give even higher estimates. Leading Sen. Youri Latortue told The Associated Press that 500,000 could be dead, although he acknowledged that nobody really knows. 

“Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,” Preval told the Miami Herald. “There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.” 

Even the main prison in the capital fell down, “and there are reports of escaped inmates,” U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva. 

The head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission was missing and the Roman Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince was dead. 

“The cathedral, the archbishop’s office, all the big churches, the seminaries have been reduced to rubble,” Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the apostolic envoy to Haiti, told the Vatican news agency FIDES. 

The parking lot of the Hotel Villa Creole was a triage center. People sat with injuries and growing infections by the side of rubble-strewn roads, hoping that doctors and aid would come. 

The international Red Cross said a third of Haiti’s 9 million people may need emergency aid and that it would take a day or two for a clear picture of the damage to emerge. 

At first light Wednesday, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter evacuated four critically injured U.S. Embassy staff to the hospital on the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the military has been detaining suspected terrorists for the last seven years. 

President Barack Obama promised an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort, adding that the U.S. commitment to its hemispheric neighbor will be unwavering. 

“We have to be there for them in their hour of need,” Obama said. 

Other nations — from Iceland to Venezuela — said they would start sending in aid workers and rescue teams. Cuba said its existing field hospitals in Haiti had already treated hundreds of victims. The United Nations said Port-au-Prince’s main airport was “fully operational” and open to relief flights. 

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, is under way and expected to arrive off the coast of Haiti Thursday. Additional U.S. Navy ships are under way to Haiti, a statement from the U.S. Southern Command said. 

Aftershocks continued to rattle the capital of 2 million people as women covered in dust clawed out of debris, wailing. Stunned people wandered the streets holding hands. Thousands gathered in public squares to sing hymns. 

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said it was possible that the death toll “will be in the thousands.” 

“Initial reports suggest a high number of casualties and, of course, widespread damage but I don’t have any figure that I can give you with any reliability of what the number of casualties will be,” Holmes said. 

A person approaches a body lying in the rubble along Delmas road the day after an earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010. A 7.0-magnitude earthquake, the largest ever recorded in the area, rocked Haiti on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Jorge Cruz)

People pulled bodies from collapsed homes, covering them with sheets by the side of the road. Passers-by lifted the sheets to see if loved ones were underneath. Outside a crumbled building, the bodies of five children and three adults lay in a pile. 

The prominent died along with the poor: the body of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, 63, was found in the ruins of his office, said the Rev. Pierre Le Beller of the Saint Jacques Missionary Center in Landivisiau, France. He told The Associated Press by telephone that fellow missionaries in Haiti had told him they found Miot’s body. 

Preval told the Herald that Haiti’s Senate president was among those trapped alive inside the Parliament building. Much of the National Palace pancaked on itself. 

The international Red Cross and other aid groups announced plans for major relief operations in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. 

Many will have to help their own staff as well as stricken Haitians. Taiwan said its embassy was destroyed and the ambassador hospitalized. Spain said its embassy was badly damaged. 

Tens of thousands of people lost their homes as buildings that were flimsy and dangerous even under normal conditions collapsed. Nobody offered an estimate of the dead, but the numbers were clearly enormous. 

“The hospitals cannot handle all these victims,” said Dr. Louis-Gerard Gilles. 

Medical experts say disasters such as an earthquake generally do not lead to new outbreaks of infectious diseases, but they do tend to worsen existing health problems. 

Haiti’s quake refugees likely will face an increased risk of dengue fever, malaria and measles — problems that plagued the impoverished country before, said Kimberley Shoaf, associate director of the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters. 

Some of the biggest immediate health threats include respiratory disease from inhaling dust from collapsed buildings and diarrhea from drinking contaminated water. 

With hospitals and clinics severely damaged, Haiti will also face risks of secondary infections. People seeking medical attention for broken bones and other injuries may not be able to get the help they need and may develop complications. 

Dead bodies piled on the streets typically don’t pose a public health risk. But for a country wracked by violence, seeing the dead will exact a psychological toll. 

An American aid worker was trapped for about 10 hours under the rubble of her mission house before she was rescued by her husband, who told CBS’ “Early Show” that he drove 100 miles (160 kilometers) to Port-au-Prince to find her. Frank Thorp said he dug for more than an hour to free his wife, Jillian, and a co-worker, from under about a foot of concrete. 

An estimated 40,000-45,000 Americans live in Haiti, and the U.S. Embassy had no confirmed reports of deaths among its citizens. All but one American employed by the embassy have been accounted for, State Department officials said. 

Even relatively wealthy neighborhoods were devastated. 

An AP videographer saw a wrecked hospital where people screamed for help in Petionville, a hillside district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians as well as the poor. 

At a destroyed four-story apartment building, a girl of about 16 stood atop a car, trying to see inside while several men pulled at a foot sticking from rubble. She said her family was inside. 

A resident carries an injured person for medical assistance after a major earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, January 13, 2010. Thousands were feared dead in the major earthquake that destroyed the presidential palace, schools, hospitals and hillside shanties in Haiti, its leaders said on Wednesday, and the United States and other nations geared up for a big relief operation. by REUTERS/Carlos Barria (HAITI - Tags: DISASTER ENVIRONMENT)

“A school near here collapsed totally,” Petionville resident Ken Michel said after surveying the damage. “We don’t know if there were any children inside.” He said many seemingly sturdy homes nearby were split apart. 

The U.N.’s 9,000 peacekeepers in Haiti, many of whom are from Brazil, were distracted from aid efforts by their own tragedy: Many spent the night hunting for survivors in the ruins of their headquarters. 

“It would appear that everyone who was in the building, including my friend Hedi Annabi, the United Nations’ secretary-general’s special envoy, and everyone with him and around him, are dead,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on RTL radio. 

But U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy would not confirm that Annabi was dead, saying he was among more than 100 people missing in its wrecked headquarters. He said only about 10 people had been pulled out, many of them badly injured. Fewer than five bodies had been removed, he said. 

U.N. peacekeeping forces in Port-au-Prince are securing the airport, the port, main buildings and patrolling the streets, Le Roy said. 

Brazil’s army said at least 11 of its peacekeepers were killed, while Jordan’s official news agency said three of its peacekeepers were killed. A state newspaper in China said eight Chinese peacekeepers were known dead and 10 were missing — though officials later said the information was not confirmed. 

The quake struck at 4:53 p.m., and was centered 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of only 5 miles (8 kilometers), the U.S. Geological Survey said. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti. 

Video obtained by the AP showed a huge dust cloud rising over Port-au-Prince shortly after the quake as buildings collapsed. 

Most Haitians are desperately poor, and after years of political instability the country has no real construction standards. In November 2008, following the collapse of a school in Petionville, the mayor of Port-au-Prince estimated about 60 percent of buildings were shoddily built and unsafe normally. 

The quake was felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and in eastern Cuba, but no major damage was reported in either place. 

With electricity out in many places and phone service erratic, it was nearly impossible for Haitian or foreign officials to get full details of the devastation. 

“Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken,” said Henry Bahn, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official in Port-au-Prince. “The sky is just gray with dust.” 

Edwidge Danticat, an award-winning Haitian-American author was unable to contact relatives in Haiti. She sat with family and friends at her home in Miami, looking for news on the Internet and watching TV news reports. 

“You want to go there, but you just have to wait,” she said. “Life is already so fragile in Haiti, and to have this on such a massive scale, it’s unimaginable how the country will be able to recover from this.” 

By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer Jonathan M. Katz, Associated Press Writer – 12 January 2010
Associated Press contributors to this story: videographer Pierre Richard Luxama in Port-au-Prince; and writers David Koop and Olga R. Rodriguez in Mexico City; David McFadden and Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Matthew Lee and Julie Pace in Washington; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations; Tamara Lush in Tampa, Fla.; and Jennifer Kay and Christine Armario in Miami.
[source: Yahoo news: Thousands feared dead in Haiti quake; many trapped]

The post [News] Thousands feared dead in Haiti quake; many trapped appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).