A second major quake has rattled the Philippines after an earlier 6.1-magnitude earthquake that left 11 people dead and 30 still feared trapped in the rubble.
The magnitude 6.3 earthquake with a depth of 53.6 miles (83.3km) was registered on the island of Samar in central Philippines on Tuesday afternoon local time, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). There is no tsunami warning and no immediate reports of damage.
Tuesday's earthquake follows a large earthquake on Monday which struck near the town of Bodega on the Philippine island of Luzon on Monday, according to USGS.
The death toll from Monday's earthquake climbed to 11 on Tuesday, CNN Philippines reported. Around 30 people are still believed to be trapped after a supermarket collapsed in Porac, Pampanga, a province northwest of the capital Manila.
Authorities have put in place a state of calamity, which results in automatic price controls on necessities, and allows local government units to appropriate calamity funds, CNN Philippines reported.
Monday's earthquake was felt in the capital of Manila as well as other parts of Luzon. CNN Philippines said that at least 52 aftershocks have been recorded.
A new powerful earthquake hit the central Philippines on Tuesday, a day after a magnitude 6.1 quake rattled the country's north and left at least 16 people dead.
The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude of Tuesday's quake at 6.4, while the local seismology agency said it was 6.5. The quake was centered near San Julian town in Eastern Samar province and prompted residents to dash out of houses and office workers to scamper to safety.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage from the new quake.
Meanwhile, rescuers worked overnight to recover bodies in the rubble of a supermarket that crashed down in Monday's quake, which damaged other buildings and an airport in the northern Philippines.
The bodies of five victims were pulled from Chuzon Supermarket while seven other people died in hard-hit Porac town in Pampanga province, north of Manila, said Ricardo Jalad, who heads the government's disaster-response agency.
An Associated Press photographer saw seven people, including at least one dead, being pulled out by rescuers from the pile of concrete, twisted metal and wood overnight. Red Cross volunteers, army troops, police and villagers used four cranes, crow bars and sniffer dogs to look for the missing, some of whom were still yelling for help Monday night.
Philippine seismologists said the back-to-back quakes in the last two days were unrelated and caused by different local faults.
When skyscrapers start moving back and forth, that definitely is not a a good sign. In recent months, there has been a tremendous amount of seismic activity along the "Ring of Fire", and a couple of significant earthquakes on Monday got a lot of attention because they happened in very heavily populated areas.
Fortunately the damage was fairly limited and only a few people died, but scientists assure us that it is only a matter of time before a killer quake hits a major city. And considering the fact that hundreds of millions of people live along the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean, when a killer quake does strike we could potentially be talking about a disaster unlike anything we have ever seen before.
Let's start our discussion by talking about the large quake that just hit southern Mexico...
An earthquake in southern Mexico caused tall buildings to sway in the Mexican capital Monday, prompting hundreds of office workers to evacuate along a central avenue temporarily. There were no initial reports of damage or injury.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 and its epicenter was in southern Mexico near the border between Chiapas and Guerrero states. It struck at a depth of about 11 miles (18 kilometers).
Mexico City was literally built on a former lakebed, and the unique geology of the area means that Mexico City feels earthquakes more acutely than other major cities would.
Scientists tell us that one day Mexico City is likely to be absolutely flattened by an extremely large earthquake, and let us hope that day doesn't come any time soon.
On Monday an even larger earthquake hit the central Philippines. The following comes from the Express...
A 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit the central Philippines on Monday, sparking evacuations from offices in Manila. Frightening footage shows skyscrapers swaying back and forth as debris falls nearby. The video was posted on Twitter captioned: "Buildings swaying in Manila after a 6.3 earthquake strikes in the Philippines." The earthquake struck 60km northwest of Manila, at a depth of 40km.
The Governor of Pampanga province told a radio station that several people had been killed. Media reported some structures had collapsed and the Clark International Airport, a former U.S. military base, had suffered some damage and had closed.
So we should be very thankful that all of this shaking didn't cause more damage, but we should also be alarmed by how active the Ring of Fire is becoming.
For example, over the weekend there were four substantial earthquakes in Alaska, and the largest of the four was a magnitude 5.1 quake...
At 10:31 p.m. Saturday, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake hit the Andreanof Islands region of Alaska, which is about 11,200 miles west of Anchorage. This earthquake had a depth of about 8 miles (13 kilometers).
And just as I have been writing this article, a magnitude 5.5 earthquake hit the Cascadia Subduction Zone just off the coast of Vancouver. You can find more information about this quake right here.
Any large earthquakes that happen along the Cascadia Subduction Zone are of particular concern, because the Cascadia Subduction Zone is capable of producing a seismic event that could kill millions of people in the Pacific Northwest.
Back in the year 1700, an enormous earthquake alone the Cascadia Subduction Zone triggered a tsunami so massive that it crossed the Pacific Ocean and damaged coastal towns in Japan. FEMA has warned that if such a thing happened today, "everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast". The following is an excerpt from one of my previous articles about the Cascadia Subduction Zone...
One day it will happen. With little or no warning, the Cascadia Subduction Zone will produce a catastrophic earthquake and accompanying tsunami that will essentially destroy everything west of Interstate 5 in the Pacific Northwest. It will be the worst natural disaster up to that point in American history, and as you will see below, the experts are saying that we are completely and utterly unprepared for it.
Of course the San Andreas Fault gets more publicity, but the truth is that the Cascadia Subduction Zone is capable of producing a quake "almost 30 times more energetic" than anything the San Andreas Fault can produce. The Cascadia Subduction Zone stretches from northern Vancouver Island all the way down to northern California, and one expert recently told CBN News that all of the major cities in the region are essentially "built on a time bomb"...
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