Taxonomy term

natural hazards

Thinking outside the rocks in the search for ancient earthquakes

The eyewitness accounts, written in columns from right to left, top to bottom, testify that there was no warning of the tsunami, no shaking to drive villagers to high ground before the wave hit, drowning rice paddies and swamping a castle moat. The entries, written by merchants, peasants and samurai, all clearly mark the time and date: just after midnight on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 1700.

25 Aug 2011

VA quake felt far and wide, here's why

A significant earthquake today shook residents in Virginia, but the event could be felt far and wide along the East Coast.

23 Aug 2011

Voices: Nuclear plants and natural disasters: Fukushima's fallout

Before it happened, it was hard to imagine that a combined megaquake and tsunami in Japan could cascade to a nuclear disaster. Yet that’s exactly what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi (Number 1) nuclear power plant, 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, last month. This incident has put Japan’s nuclear policy in the spotlight, but its implications go far beyond a single country.

31 May 2011

Hazardous Living: Italian seismologists on trial for manslaughter

Last June, EARTH reported that seven Italian scientists were under investigation and might be charged with manslaughter for not predicting (and warning the public about) the magnitude-6.3 earthquake that struck L’Aquila, Italy, in April 2009. By last fall, it looked like the charges might be dropped – with the support of many of the world’s seismologists.

26 May 2011

Japan's megaquake and killer tsunami: How did this happen?

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m. local time, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake ruptured a 500-kilometer-long fault zone off the northeast coast of Japan. Its epicenter was 130 kilometers off Sendai, Honshu; it occurred at a relatively shallow depth of 32 kilometers. The temblor violently shook northeast Honshu for six minutes, and collapsed its coastline by one meter.

17 May 2011

Don't forget about the Christchurch earthquake: Lessons learned from disaster

In the aftermath of the devastating magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami that struck the Tohoku region of Japan on March 11, attention quickly turned away from a much smaller, but also highly destructive earthquake that struck the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, just a few weeks earlier, on Feb. 22.

17 May 2011

Voices: What happened at Fukushima?

The Fukushima Daiichi power plant located in the port town of Okuma in the Fukushima Prefecture, northeast Japan, has six boiling-water-type nuclear reactors supplied by General Electric (units 1, 2 and 3), Toshiba (units 3 and 5) and Hitachi (unit 4) for

06 Apr 2011

Mag.-8.9 quake strikes Japan, tsunami heads for Hawaii

A powerful magnitude-8.9 earthquake struck near the eastern coast of Honshu, Japan, today at 2:46 p.m. local time. The quake sent a tsunami racing across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii, making landfall just before 3 a.m. local time. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has more information.

11 Mar 2011

Blogging on EARTH: FEMA's plans for New Madrid

This year is the 200th anniversary of the New Madrid quakes, the series of magnitude-7 to -8 earthquakes that rocked parts of Missouri and Arkansas in the winter of 1811-1812. But even 200 years later, the quakes continue to shake things up. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is taking precautions — or maybe not.

02 Feb 2011

Hazardous Living: Preparing for the storm of the century

They’re calling it “California’s Other Big One” — the giant storm that could drop more than two meters of rain on California and cause massive flooding, landslides, levee failures and general catastrophic chaos. It’s probably not that hard to imagine this year for water-weary Californians who have been hit hard by heavy rains and subsequent floods and landslides since early winter.

21 Jan 2011

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