Free Republic

Fire is still burning at this particular moment in time. It is approximately 250 acres. I live in La Verne and have family in Glendora; neither community is in danger right now (although we get a bit of smoke now and again). The fire has burned back into the mountains from Azusa and is not presently a danger to residents of Azusa other than air quality (and a little bit of fine flaky ash).

The fire’s been dubbed the Madre Fire, and you can see a map of its present burn area here: http://inciweb.org/incident/3737/

“In all fairness only a tiny portion of the US in a earthquake zone.”

Oh yeah? Take a look at this:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/us_damage_eq.php

I count two, -maybe- three US states in that which don’t show significant quakes in the last couple hundred years.

The Kyodo News in Japan is reporting 202 dead, but that number is still expected to rise. More detailed information can be had here: http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/76968.html

Tepco, the power company in Japan which is having issues, has a website with regular updates: http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html

At present, it’s the Daichii station which is having issues with reactors 1 & 2 of their six there. The Daini and Kariwa stations are apparently fine, if shut down for the moment.

In addition, eleven thermal power stations and 15 hydro power stations are shut down due to earthquake. Tepco says that of their service area, about 1.17 million households are without power.

Add to that the fact that most cell service is still completely nonfunctional, and it’s going to be mighty hard to house people or contact people in Japan for a bit.

Thank you so much!

That is absolutely fascinating. I’m going to have to go look up that study to see if there’s any more detail available publicly to read.

Yeah. There’s going to be a lot of those, although the other 6.6 is actually on a separate fault, so that one’s kinda interesting. Slip-sliding plate fun!

Just interjecting a few facts to keep in mind:

Japan’s earthquake was not volcanic, it was tectonic. The major difference is that volcanic quakes are spawned by lava flow. Tectonic shifts are when the continental plates move, and that is what Japan has experienced and is continuing to experience.

Since (and including) the 8.9 temblor in their afternoon yesterday (at around 10pm yesterday my time, PST), USGS shows a total of 104 earthquakes in the Honshu region at 5.0 or larger. I didn’t bother checking anything below 5.0, because there’s likely been thousands. That area of the world is going to be rocking and rolling for a little while. But it’s been rocking and rolling for some years — there are regularly quakes in and around Japan, which is why they’re so prepared for them.

Yes, Japan is in the ring of fire, but this quake does not mean that quakes in Hawaii or other areas are necessarily related to it. It doesn’t completely rule it out, either, but someone who is far more studied in the earthquake sciences (like, say, someone from CalTech) would have to say it before I’d believe it.

But while these other quakes elsewhere may or may not be related, there -are- some things which this quake and subsequent tsunami have definitely spawned, such as the 1 dead, 3 missing in northern California, or the damage in Oregon, etc. (For info on the CA death/missing, go to the following link: http://www.news10.net/news/story.aspx?storyid=127779&catid=2 )

Oddly, no other 7.9 is showing on the USGS site, which keeps track of these quakes. You’re welcome to look at the link yourself: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_big.php

There was a rather interesting swarm of earthquakes along the Kuril Subduction zone last week, 3 over M6 I think, that runs northeast from Japan to Kamchatka in Russia - not in Alaska, though.

Wasn't talking about the Kuril Subduction zone, though those were interesting as well - I've been watching the Russian quakes with some odd fascination, moreso because to the best of my knowledge, they're not in any inhabited areas. But I was referring to the ones which specifically said they were from Alaska. :)

Now Alaska is having small earthquakes 23:58 hours 2.9 and at 00:22 3.2 . Not huge ones but geeshhh....

I get cellphone reports on quakes in/near Alaska all the time. They've been having a lot of offshore 6-pointers in the last few weeks - somewhere in the vicinity of 10-12 of 'em over the last few weeks, if I remember rightly (I'd have to hit the USGS website to be sure, though). Small quakes there are like small quakes here in SoCal where I'm at - you don't even notice them. Heck, San Diego county has at least a dozen or so a day down on the Mexico border. :)

Yep, I've got USGS cellphone alert, as well as email alert. Been getting their alerts for a while.

A couple Hawaiian freepers posted earlier in the thread saying that they were fine, but power's out through most of the state, so chances are that there's lots of folks who can't get online to report how they're doing. Still, there haven't been any reports of loss of life - minor injuries have been reported, but nothing major.

Hadn't heard about the flash flood warnings, although I did hear the rain eased up according to the Hawaii Channel feed.

Gah, was starting to post the list of closed facilities on the Big Island, but since I'm at work, I got stopped after typing in three. BUT! The three I got down were:

Kona Community Hospital
Yano Hall
Honokaa Long Term Care Facility


Another hospital on the Big Island is also closed, but I don't have the name - it started with a K, but I admit quite freely that Hawaiian names tend to lose me unless I have a chance to copy them verbatim.

I remember that quake, although I didn't feel it. :) And I'm not saying major aftershocks can't happen at other times, too - but the longer that it is since a major quake, the more likely that there won't be major aftershocks of that quake. (Although the longer it is, the more likely it is that there will be separate quakes which are not considered 'aftershocks', but are in the same general area.)

Yuck. My guess is that I got the initial report, then the downgrade report, but never got the re-upgrade report on the 6'er - hence my confusion. :)

And no joke! Then again, it's more likely there'll be a huge aftershock within the first ten minutes than there is within the rest of the first hour. Northridge wasn't just a single quake - it was two big quakes spaced out by only seconds... so I admit, I was wondering if maybe it stuttered in Hawaii the same way it's inclined to do here. :)

No CNN at work, although I'm watching the streaming vid from the Hawaii Channel online. However, they've been confused at best.

27 aftershocks sounds a lot more accurate, actually, than what info I had - I was going off of the direct USGS mails I'd gotten, and hadn't gotten to the USGS site. I was mostly trying to find out if the three major quakes I'd gotten notice of were accurate - any idea?

While the Hawaii Channel feed (which is what's also being simulcast on CNN) keeps reporting this as a 6.5, the USGS apparently just upgraded the initial quake back to a 6.6.

I also receive USGS earthquake reports, and the three quakes which came through on my phone were the initial one (which had an initial Richter-scale rating of 6.7), a 5.8, and a 6.3. Now, nobody else is reporting on the other two quakes, and I'm still searching for information - I'm wondering if perhaps three separate quake stations on the islands measured the same quake three different ways, but that would make no sense. Regardless, I know there's been at least 10-12 smaller aftershocks, including a 4.2 just about 20 minutes ago.

Honolulu airport closed - live feed says that it's not due to damage per se, but it's because the bathrooms are currently not working due to lack of power.

Reports of injuries coming in now from Maui, including one nurse at the hospital (supposedly multiple lacerations).

Can earthquake activity trigger volcanic activity?

Yes - and the reverse is true as well; volcanic activity can also trigger earthquakes. An earthquake can open up a new vent for a volcano, or cause a faster/slower eruption. However, a volcano can cause a quake due to pressure or collapse of a volcanic chamber, too. Both are related events in that area, I'd imagine... but whether the quake came first or the volcano did in this case has yet to be determined. :)

Blonde hair and blue eyed Norwegian Muslims?

Nope. Norway, along with a great many other European countries, has a large Muslim population now. Denmark is quite disturbed about theirs, I hear tell... to appease the Muslims there, they had to build a huge mosque in Copenhagen. So I can't imagine Norway being much different.

Don't know the answers to your questions about faked documents, though. I'm not in that line of work, either.