Thursday, November 24, 2016

Earth Signs Increasing: Another Big Earthquake Strikes Central America Just After Hurricane Makes Landfall







Has anybody noticed the increase in significant earthquakes recently? Not to mention the ongoing story of volcanos erupting recently? Just look at the last week, but starting with today's quake in El Salvador/Nicaragua and this approximately one hour after a hurricane made landfall. 







A magnitude 7.0 earthquake rattled El Salvador's Pacific coast Thursday, but the country's civil defense agency said there were no immediate reports of damages or injuries.

Lina Pohl, the country's environment minister, said there was a tsunami alert, with the possibility of waves 6 feet (3 meters) high along the coast.

Nicaragua, which was also close to the epicenter, also reported a tsunami alert.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter of the 12:43 p.m. (1843 GMT) quake was about 92 miles (149 kilometers) south-southwest of the port of El Triunfo, El Salvador.

El Triunfo is located about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of San Salvador, the capital, where the quake was felt strongly.

Nicaragua, meanwhile, was already under alert after Hurricane Otto made landfall on the country's Caribbean coast.









A 7.0 magnitude earthquake has shaken El Salvador and Nicaragua, just an hour after a powerful hurricane hit Nicaragua's eastern coast.
The double whammy was a grim test for a largely poor region which lacks resources and emergency plans for natural disasters.
Salvadoran authorities issued a tsunami alert as a precaution after the tremor, which struck around 75 miles off the coast of El Salvador, at a depth of 20 miles beneath the Pacific Ocean, according to the US Geological Survey. The quake was first measured at a magnitude of 7.2 but was then downgraded.
"Hazardous" waves measuring about up to 1m (three feet) were anticipated to hit coastal areas within 300km of the quake's epicentre. Officals warned anyone living on the Pacific coast of El Salvador to withdraw at least 1km away from the shore.
The tsunami warnings were lifted within hours of the earthquake on Thursday, according to the assistant director of the Sinapred national disaster prevention agency, Guillermo Gonzalez, said at a press conference.

Just one hour before the earthquake, a powerful hurricane, Otto, packing winds of 110mph, made landfall on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast.


Thousands of people had already been evacuated from coastal areas into shelters - a total of 7,000 people were expected to evacuate in Nicaragua alone. Government officials said some people had refused to evacuate but did not say how many.

Earlier this week, four people died in Panama due to outer bands of the storm.

The heavy rains it was offloading were likely to cause dangerous flooding and mud slides, according to the US National Hurricane Center, with as much as 20 inches of rain expected in isolated areas across northern Costa Rica and southern Nicaragua. Schools were shut down and emergency teams were mobilised.

Otto was the southernmost hurricane to ever make landfall in Central America, the NHC said, and residents were not prepared.











One of Mexico’s most active volcanoes, the Colima has erupted this week.
Volcano Discovery reported a slow release of lava was being ejected about 500 meter long on the southern flank of the volcano.

However activity is increasing as the new lava dome in the summit crater continues to grow.
It is now over-spilling the lowest point of the southern crater wall where a small lava flow is descending on the upper slope.


Related:















Updates on quakes this week: 







A magnitude 6.4 - 10km SSW of Zonda, hit Argentina last night, it came as a massive coronal hole on the Sun returned to face Earth raising concerns of further major quakes to hit in the coming days.

At the end of October, a hole in the sun's atmosphere lashed Earth's magnetic field with solar wind, sparking strong geomagnetic storms and almost a full week of Arctic auroras. It's back. The same "coronal hole" is turning toward Earth again, it has shrunk a little but it still covers a third of our Sun. 

Last night’s major quake was the 8th of this November and the 120th of 2016, see below.

The West coast of the US is looking more and more vulnerable as its the only area of the "ring of fire" not to witness a major quake this year and the law of averages would suggest "the big one" has to come sooner or later.













A Japanese teenager films a meteor burning up in the sky above Fukushima Prefecture during last night’s major quake. 
The teen, known as Asuka, 16, from Japan, filmed the extraordinary sight trailing across the evening sky.

A rough translation of her Tweet accompanying the video says: "A movie I took while preparing to die.
Luckily she lived to tell the tale.



The cooling system of the third reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant stopped circulating water following the powerful mag 6.9 offshore earthquake.
TEPCO said it managed to restart the system some 90 minutes after the failure.
The cooling system servicing the Unit 3 spent fuel pool was not able to circulate water to cool the nuclear fuel because of a broken pump, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Agency.
The exact cause of the cooling system stoppage is currently unknown.

However, the system might have been “shaken” during the earthquake, according to nuclear agency officials, as reported by NHK.

The station’s storage pool currently contains 2,544 spent fuel rods.
No cooling water leaks or any other “abnormalities” have been reported.





And this:






  •  Snow cover in Siberia has reached its highest point for this time of year in decades which influences the weather in the US
  • Polar vortex bring frigid temperatures which can be colder than Mars
  • Siberia is near record cold for this time of year, and snow cover is at around the highest level for this time of year since at least 1998.



The very cruel cold of the polar vortex is set to return to the United States this winter dropping temperatures so cold parts of the US will be colder than Mars on occaisions. Experts claim a cold winter is imminent as snow cover in Siberia has reached its highest point for this time of year in decades, which according to MIT climatologist Judah Cohen, claims this year’s conditions are a ‘textbook situation,’ and would be a carbon copy of the last two winters in the US. It’s thought that more snow in northern Eurasia signals the frigid temperatures set to hit the regions above. 

And while the cold blast could strike anywhere among North America, Asia, or Europe, the expert warns the US may get hit harder than forecasters are expecting. 

Siberia is near record cold for this time of year, and snow cover is at around the highest level for this time of year since at least 1998.


This Siberian snowball fight requires some serious upper body strength, and a helmet. Giant frozen orbs recently appeared along an 11-mile stretch of Siberian coastline. The largest of the naturally formed snowballs measured nearly 3 feet across, according to Russian news reports. This frosty phenomenon is connected to ongoing weather events that could bring heavier snowfall in parts of North America and Western Europe this winter. These developments might lead to a snowy winter in parts of the U.S., particularly the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, as well as in Western Europe. Some U.S. meteorologists use Siberian snow cover levels in October to forecast how key weather patterns will likely evolve downstream.





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