Updated Earthquakes

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Nov. 27, 2005

BEIJING

A strong earthquake struck central China on Saturday, killing at least 15 people, injuring more than 450 and destroying hundreds of buildings, the government said. The official Xinhua News Agency said the state Seismological Bureau gave a magnitude-5.7 quake hit Saturday morning and was centered in central Jiangxi province's Ruichang city near the border of Hubei province.

Most of the damage occurred in Ruichang and in the popular resort town of Jiujiang, it said. At least 14 people were killed and 377 were injured, Xinhua said. In neighboring Hubei province, one person died and 81 were injured, including 78 students caught in a stampede during evacuation. Hundreds of homes collapsed and thousands were damaged. The news showed a young boy with his head heavily bandaged and a man crying on a bench as he cradled an injured leg. An old man and his injured wife shared a cot at a makeshift medical center set up in the street.

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November 27, 2005

TEHRAN, Iran

An earthquake measuring at least magnitude-5.9 shook a sparsely populated area of southern Iranon Sunday, flattening seven villages and killing 10 people, officials said. The temblor was felt as far away as Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

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December 05, 2005

NAIROBI, Kenya

A strong earthquake struck the Lake Tanganyika region of east Africa on Monday, sending workers in tall buildings in downtown Nairobi fleeing their offices in panic. The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8, struck at 2:20 p.m. (7:20 a.m. EST) and was centered near the Congo-Tanzania border, about 600 miles southwest of the Kenyan capital, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The USGS said the quake was located about six miles below the surface, and shook the ground in at least three Kenyan towns, including Nairobi The region is located along the Great Rift Valley, which runs for 3,000 miles between Syria and Mozambique and passes through the Dead Sea, below Jerusalem's eastern hills.

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December 05, 2005

KINSHASA, Congo

A powerful earthquake Monday toppled dozens of homes and buried children in rubble in eastern Congo, killing at least two people in a region already beset by chronic violence and grinding poverty. The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8, struck at 2:20 p.m. (7:20 a.m. EST) and was centered beneath Lake Tanganyika on the Congo-Tanzania border, about 600 miles southwest of Nairobi, Kenya, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

"Dozens of houses have collapsed, several children were buried by the roofs of their houses," said Dr. Jean-Donne Owali, a Congolese humanitarian worker in the lakeside city of Kalemie, Congo, about 35 miles from the epicenter. Owali said at least two people had died of injuries at his clinic. He said he saw children bleeding from head injuries after their mud-and-thatch homes collapsed.

U.N. spokesman Michel Bonnardeaux said a child was killed in the city when two houses and a church "crumbled." Three people were wounded. It was not immediately clear if the child was one of the two people Owali reported killed. Bonnardeaux said most of the injuries in the area were from falling zinc and steel roofs. The desperately poor region also has camps for tens of thousands of refugees from wars and economic collapse in Congo and Burundi. The USGS said the quake was located about six miles underground and shook Nairobi and the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa. It was also felt on the shores of Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, and in Tanzanian towns bordering Zambia and Malawi, Tanzania's meteorological chief Mohamed Mhita said by phone from the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam.

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LIMA, Peru September 26, 2005

A powerful earthquake hit northern Peru causing power outages and cutting phone service throughout much of the region.The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 7.5 and struck at 8:55 p.m. It was centered 50 miles northeast of the jungle city of Moyobamba, or about 445 miles north of the capital Lima. Several houses have fallen down and there are several people dead. Mori said about 20 houses had collapsed and that four people were dead. One person was killed in Lamas and nine were injured. One person was killed in Lamas and nine were injured. A policeman in Lamas also said, that eight houses were destroyed and about 30 damaged. The earthquake was felt throughout Peru's northern coast and as far away as Bogota, Colombia. The quake knocked out power in the northern coastal city of Chiclayo, 410 miles northwest of Lima. (2005) It was one of the strongest earthquakes in Peru since a devastating 8.1-magitude temblor hit the Arequipa province in southern Peru in June 2001, killing at least 75 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless. A magnitude-7.6 aftershock struck the southern Andes on July 7, 2001, but did not cause injuries or serious damage.

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan ~ Oct. 8, 2005

A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake near the Pakistan-India border Saturday reduced villages to rubble, triggered landslides and flattened an apartment building, killing hundreds of people in both nations. Pakistan's army called the devastation "a national tragedy." Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake. Pakistan called Saturday's magnitude-7.7 earthquake the country's worst on record, and the president appealed for urgent help. Rival India, which reported more than 465 dead, offered assistance. "I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir." In mountainous Kashmir, the quake flattened dozens of villages and towns, crushing schools and mud-brick houses. The dead included 250 girls at a school razed to the ground and more than 200 Pakistani soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of three nations, with the damage spanning at least 250 miles from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-story building collapsed. We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan's history." The quake leveled the village's main bazaar, crushing shoppers and strewing gas cylinders, bricks, tomatoes and onions on the streets. Injured people covered by shawls lay in the street, waiting for medical care. Residents carried bodies on wooden planks. Elsewhere in Balakot, shop owner Mohammed Iqbal said two primary schools, one for boys and one for girls, also collapsed. More than 500 students were feared dead.
In Pakistan's northwestern district of Mansehra, police chief Ataullah Khan Wazir said Saturday that authorities there pulled 250 bodies from the rubble of a girls' school in the village of Ghari Habibibullah. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools. At least 215 Pakistani soldiers died in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, Sultan said. On the India side of the border, at least 54 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60 miles northeast of Islamabad in the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir. That was followed by at least 22 aftershocks within 24 hours, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor. Hospitals moved quake victims onto lawns, fearing more damage, and many people spent the night in the open.

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SANTIAGO, Chile June 14, 2005

A powerful earthquake rattled cities in Bolivia and Peru and heavily damaged mountain villages in northern Chile, killing at least eight people. The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.9, making it the world's third strongest temblor since the quake that set off an Asian tsunami in December. It struck Monday evening and was centered in an unpopulated Andean area, about 940 miles north of Santiago Chile's capital. Interior Minister said a boulder fell on a car near Chile's northern port city of Iquique, killing all five passengers ~ three adults and two children. The other victims were three elderly men killed in two different Andean villages. One of the victims was a disabled 80-year-old man killed when a wall collapsed at his home. Several people were injured but did not provide a number or other details. In addition, several homes and roads were damaged. He said there could be more victims in some isolated communities. The quake was also felt in several cities in neighboring Peru and Bolivia, but no victims or major damage were reported in either country. (2005)

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CLINTON, Ky. ~ June 20, 2005

No damage was reported Monday after an earthquake hit western Kentucky. The temblor was felt throughout the region, including parts of southern and eastern Missouri, said John Minch, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Center in Golden, Colo. The 3.9 magnitude quake hit at 7:21 a.m. CDT, Minch said. It was centered near Clinton in Hickman County, he said. In addition to western Kentucky and parts of Missouri, it was felt in southern Illinois and northwest Tennessee. "It moved the floor," said Marie Hart, a dispatcher for Kentucky State Police in Mayfield, near Clinton. "It was like standing on water." Minch said he wasn't sure whether the quake originated from the New Madrid Fault, based in the Missouri Bootheel, which runs through western Kentucky. Earlier this month, a 4.0 temblor was felt across northwest Tennessee and southwest Kentucky, but caused little damage.

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Strong Earthquake Shakes Turkey ~ Oct. 20, 2005

ISTANBUL, Turkey

A magnitude-5.9 earthquake shook the Aegean port city of Izmir early Saturday morning, sending panicked residents into the streets. About 15 people were brought to hospitals with minor injuries or heart attacks brought on by the quake, CNN-Turk reported. The Governor of Izmir province, said there were no immediate reports of deaths. "Everyone is in the streets," Koksal said, according to the Anatolia news agency. He said five buildings were damaged in Izmir, Turkey's third largest city. The quake was centered in Seferihisar, Turkey, the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory said, but was felt in Istanbul and the Greek islands of Chios and Mytilini near the Turkish coast. Seferihisar is 190 miles south of Istanbul.

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Small Quake Shakes N.C. August 25, 2005

HOT SPRINGS, N.C.

Not exactly "all shook up," but parts of the southeast were jolted by a fairly significant earthquake overnight. The three-point-eight shaker was centered about two miles from Hot Springs, North Carolina, and rumbled though North Carolina , Tennessee and Georgia. There's not much damage reported, but some rocks did crash down on a highway in North Carolina's Madison County. The quake also damaged the foundation of a mobile home and knocked pictures off walls. One person in Asheville says it "scared her to death." She says she thought her water heater had blown up.

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