Earthquake rocks Pakistan, creates new island

A 7.7 Richter-scale earthquake struck the southern region of Pakistan yesterday, killing 327 and wounding hundreds others. The largely rural area surrounding the epicenter is sparsely populated, with potential victims scattered over thousands of square miles, thus Authority in the Asian nation fears the death toll could skyrocket once rescue workers reach the more remote locales.

Over 300,000 individuals have been affected, with thousands left homeless by the disaster, and since no emergency shelters are available people were literally left to sleep out in the open. Clean drinking water and edible food is nearly impossible to come by, and aid workers fear that undernourishment and disease could reach crisis levels if supplies do not arrive to the area soon.

The quake was so powerful it caused a new island to rise off the coast of Pakistan; with its tallest point being 60 feet (18 meters) above sea level, the tiny island is approximately 100 feet (30 meters) wide and 250 feet (76 meters) long. Despite the gases emitting from the new landmass (and the catastrophe which caused its formation), many from a nearby coastal town landed boats on it, to explore and even photograph the new wonder.

The nation has been victimized by severe seismic activity for nearly a decade, with five instances of quakes measuring above 6.4 having occurred; one of these, a 7.6 which struck the northern part of the country in October 2005, killed 73,000 people. The area affected by yesterday's event is already impoverished, with a majority of the buildings and homes being built with mud bricks. Most of these structures have been destroyed due to being incapable of withstanding a large-scale ground-shaker, adding to the already cataclysmic situation.

Severe geological activity rattling Alaska

Alaska has been rocked over the past three days by intense earthquake activity. A 7.0 Richter-scale event struck 67 miles off the sparsely-populated Aleutian Island chain Friday morning, with the village of Adak taking the brunt of the shaking. Dozens of after-shocks - of varying intensities - soon followed, including a powerful 6.1. There were no reports of injury or damage.

Seismic activity for the last 72 hours, via
Alaska Earthquake Information Center.

The entire state has always been prone to intense seismic activity (the 9.2 catastrophe in 1964 being one extreme example), and over the last month said-activity has been exceeding normal standards. The bulk of these quakes has been focused on a curved line, starting at the far west end of the Aleutians and moving east then north through the center of the state. In the last 72 hours alone 429 measurable earth-shakers have been recorded.

In that 1964 quake 131 people were killed, and $2.22 billion (adjusted to today's scale) in property damage occurred. Of those deaths only nine were killed by the earthquake itself, with the rest perishing from the massive tsunami which followed, a wave so powerful it killed 16 people as far away as California and Oregon. While this latest event did not produce a tsunami, scientists intend to remain on high alert until seismic activity in the region wanes.

FOLLOW-UP: In a story from August 13th I discussed minor swarms of earthquakes shaking up geologic hot-spots across the globe, including California, the Mediterranean, Western South America, as well as Alaska. Aside from South America (which appears to have calmed somewhat), these regions not only remain active, but said-activity appears to be intensifying; the volume of recorded earthquakes has also increased in eastern Asia and Indonesia.

Minor earthquake swarms intensifying worldwide

Geological hot-spots across the globe have been experiencing an uptick in earthquakes over the past week. Most of the quakes have shook the ground between 2.0 to 3.9 on the Richter scale, thus being barely perceived - if noticed at all - by a majority of people. The sheer volume of events, however, in so many prime earthquake locales, is cause for concern.

Just in the last 12 hours (from 7:00 AM CDT today) California and western Nevada have combined for a minimum of 53 quakes, while Mediterranean Sea nations have recorded at least 29. West-central South America has picked up 18 readings, and though Japan has only reported four quakes all of them fall between the 4.2 to 4.9 range.

The biggest surprise is Alaska, which has had 40 such incidents; while the northern-most U.S. state is no stranger to ground-shaking activity, numbers this high are unusual for a half-day period. Hawaii's Big Island has also experienced heavy activity over the last 3 days, though things have calmed somewhat over the last 24 hours. Of the known frequent-quake zones only New Zealand has been relatively quiet thus far.

Observation: Many of these minor swarms isolated to their own regions would almost be non-noteworthy in of themselves, due to the areas discussed being geologically prone to earthquakes. Taken together, however - on such a wide scale - suggests the planet as a whole is feeling quite restless, thus this report - SB.