Posted on 04/12/2014 2:59:53 PM PDT by Lorianne
Just as residents of Managua were clearing up the damage from an earthquake on Thursday, a second earthquake struck Nicaragua on Friday.
Measuring 6.6 on the richter scale it could be felt as far away in San Jose in Costa Rica.
The epicentre was 24 km south of Granada near the Pacific coast, the depth of it suggested that a tsunami was unlikely.
The government had evacuated buildings and schools were closed on Friday as thousands of aftershocks continued to rattle the country, which helped avoid many injuries when the second quake struck.
The government raised the number of those injured in Thursday’s quake from 23 to 200 and one person was reported to have died.
bttt
What the hell’s going on. Even my atheist brother is getting nervous.
Central America is a volcanic area, very earthquake- (and eruption- and mudslide- ) prone, just like the rest of the Pacific Coast. Nothing is going on except what has always gone on in those regions.
Plate tectonics. God’s way of making atheists nervous.
Earthquakes are old stuff for me.
Earthquakes are judged by intensity as well as time. There can be some REAL scary ones that only last 5 seconds, but for THOSE, first there's a huge CRACK!!, then the rumble.
Again, if it's bad'un, there are more but smaller tremors. There may be several, each getting smaller and shorter.
BAD ONE: Huge cracking sound, loud rumble then the house shakes, rattles and rolls. Our home is built on shale, so we never get much damage. The very WORST one left a small crack in the living room ceiling and my glass of water fell on the carpet.
***In THIS state there are rigorous building codes, so all our homes are built of wood and concrete because they BEND. Bricks (1906) do NOT bend; they crumble. So, with wood and concrete buildings we shake, rattle and roll but end up with MINIMAL damage. This is 2014 A.D. so not much happens.
MINOR one: small rumble and I first think--large truck rumbling by outside. No truck, OH, an earthquake. By that time, it's over. I usually feel NO aftershocks with the minor ones.
GOOD points: Earthquakes are unpredictable. We don't have the weather people screaming TWISTER A-COMIN'! The anticipation of a twister is not very nice to endure either. We don't need storm shelters, a la Wizard of Oz.
BAD points: For earthquakes in third world sewers countries it's a mess. The few wealthy, powerful and connected families control banks, military, land and politics and these powerful families don't give a damn. THEY are always safe because their ruined estates were better built with superior materials and can be abandoned for a while until they are rebuilt.
SIDE NOTE: I was watching the folks of Santa Barbara after their huge quake then FIRESTORM. The "folks" watching were moaning, groaning and crying....from their YACHTS off shore. I felt so sorry for them for two seconds.
They were exactly like the wealthy of the third world sewers: their mansions would be rebuilt; and they were.
He should be nervous all the time.
Good one.
The atheists who live on the West Coast aren't nervous because their homes, like mine, are built with wood and/or concrete, which BEND. Thus, their homes aren't damaged at all....state construction laws. Even the poorest are safe.
But for the rest of the atheists....TREMBLE, fools!!
So true.
However, in Central America the poor always suffer because their shacks are always destroyed because of poor construction. The wealthy never suffer because their homes are better built AND they can move to another one of their homes, say, in the Virgin Islands or Mexico, while their C.A. home is rebuilt.
What else is new?
My daughter is in missions right on the lake. She said the water was a movin’
Importantly, there is right now some back and forth between Nicaragua and the Solomon Islands, with both of them getting pounded.
I would suspect that both storms are a direct result of those huge ones in Chile.
I agree, and what we’re saying about the Pacific Rim is true about every seismically-active part of the world. I was addressing the implication that seismic activity in Nicaragua (or elsewhere) is worse than it has been in the past.
The value of natural-disaster losses is increasing, but that doesn’t mean there’s a trend in the severity of hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. It just means that higher-value buildings are in place in the relevant geographic regions.
Nothing new, past or present. Its geography and climate decide its past, present and future. I went down there for a vacation a few years ago. It was gorgeous.
The literature seems to think that this latest spate was "more of the same." I think the country and the rest of C.A. are doomed because of their greedy third world government corruption. Again, since it's a classic case of nothing new they simply await more of the same, from both their geography and government.
That's certainly within the realm of possibility. Within the span of recorded history, we've seen seismically-active parts of the world go from light populations, to dense-population civilizations, and back to depopulation. It's the circle of life, Geology category.
Geology is part of the question, but politics, economics, culture is another big part. One could say that all civilization is the interaction of natural forces (rain, earthquake, soil, volcano) with human forces (war, economics, agriculture, religion.)
Sigh. It really is a pleasure to read your posts, T-c.
Clear, lucid and to the point!
Thank you! I read a lot, and listen to “Teaching Company” lectures on my CD player in the kitchen, and then I think about it.
History is very big picture, and geology is an even bigger one, even if you’re a Creationist.
You could say, “Hurricanes in the Carolinas are worse than they ever have been!!! OMG, the Apocalypse and/or Global Warming!!!” Or, you could say, “Financial losses due to hurricanes in the Carolinas are higher than they have ever been, due to high-value real estate development in areas known for meteorologic and geologic instability.”
If people used pure reason in deciding where to settle, weather and geology would be much smaller factors. But people don’t, and haven’t historically, and we can’t reasonably expect them to start at any future time.
“I think the country and the rest of C.A. are doomed because of their greedy third world government corruption.”
Having done business in both Nicaragua and California I can assure you Nicaragua is much friendlier toward investment and business operations than the state of California. Despite its socialist rhetoric, the Daniel Ortega led Sandinista government strongly encourages job producing foreign investment. Government officials charged with development work diligently to clear roadblocks and cut any red tape that gets in the way of production or exporting products. Government officials never asked for bribes or favors during my five years setting up factories there. In addition there were none of the shakedowns by tort lawyers and unions I’ve experienced in California and many other states in the United States.
In fact, the Nicaraguan factories I was involved with had employee unions. The union leaders had a very realistic approach to wages and work rules. The union never intervened to prevent the firing of a problem employee and it never engaged in deliberate work slowdowns or other manipulative tactics. The union was supportive of the incentive pay system and agreed to changes in factory configuration and work rules that increased productivity. The only hint of corruption I experienced during my work in Nicaragua was one traffic stop for speeding where the driver of the vehicle handed the policeman a US $20 bill to avoid a ticket. I never felt unsafe moving around the country or walking on the street in either cities or small villages.
During the same period of time I was involved with factories in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Honduras. In those countries petty crime was rampant. Kidnapping for ransom and murder was a problem in both El Salvador and Honduras. Corruption of government officials was also an obstacle to business in these three countries. In El Salvador and Honduras I had to travel with armed body guards.
Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America. Its people have a very strong and positive work ethic and value the opportunity to work. From what I’ve seen government officials in Nicaragua work hard to bring investment and jobs to the country. The legal system protects property rights and business interests. It is my assessment the Nicaraguan people are much better off under Sandinista administration than prior “pro US” governments. Crime, violence and corruption is also lower in Nicaragua than other countries in the region. Due to its low cost of living and relative safety, the country is becoming an attractive retirement location for Americans and Europeans.
One thing I’ve learned doing business around the world over the past 40 years is the situation on the ground is often very different than one perceives from afar. There is no substitute for first hand observation.
“Financial losses ...
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Consider the financial losses that would occur if a real major quake struck in/near the Panama Canal Zone and wrecked some of the locks. ...Shipping would revert to having to sail around the Southern tip of South America to transit between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
I could NEVER figure this out. After all the storms, flooding and mayhem, people moved RIGHT back onto the EVER-flooding Mississippi. Why?!?! They aren't stupid.
I think that the US government finally had to step in and say: no more building on the banks of the flood zone.
?!?! Sad to see such stupidity foolishness in supposedly such an educated populace.
What was reported under those circumstances would depend, in large part, on what was insured. They have to get numbers for “financial loss due to Event X” from somewhere, and it’s heavily dependent on insurance liability.
I don’t know to what extent any kind of insurance coverage would indemnify losses due to an event such as loss of Panama Canal function. It might even be different depending on whether the disruption was due to natural forces or political events. Insurance companies try to cover the less-likely outcomes!
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