Earthquake

The torrential rainfall across the southern Plains states on May 25 and 26 led to extensive and devastating flooding and to the tragic loss of at least 19 lives.

The most powerful earthquake to hit Nepal in 70 years struck approximately 34 km (21 miles) from Lamjung at 11:56 NST on 25 April, with devastating consequences for the people and economy of the country. Aftershocks will continue, but the good news is that the next great rupture will likely be some distance away from the densely populated capital city, Kathmandu.

After a relatively quiet period in terms of large and damaging earthquakes, the recent event in Nepal is a stark reminder that earthquakes can—and do—occur with little or no warning, and are indiscriminate about who they affect.

I'm a Bostonian who has visited New Zealand often and noticed many similarities between Christchurch and my home town. There are definitely concerns about Boston's seismic risks.

After two and a half years of development, the first iteration of OpenQuake has just been released. The initiative is led by the Global Earthquake Model (GEM), an independent non-profit headquartered in Pavia, Italy, which works to provide cat model access to communities traditionally priced out of the market.

The coastal regions of Calabria and Sicily in southern Italy, over which Europe’s most active volcano Mount Etna presides, are periodically affected by earthquakes—and, yes, even tsunamis. The area is located at the convergent plate boundary between the African and the Eurasian Plates, resulting in strong seismic and volcanic activity.

A decade ago, one of the deadliest natural disasters in history killed more than 230,000 people in 14 countries around the Indian Ocean and caused significant damage in five more. The magnitude 9.1–9.3 megathrust earthquake occurred 250 km south-south-east of Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

At one time or another, fleeing toads, magnetic waves, thermal radiation, planetary alignments, tidal forces and disruptions in the ionosphere have all been said to foretell earthquakes. Ask most geoscientists to predict an earthquake, however, and they will scoff at the notion.

Big earthquakes (or mainshocks, as seismologists call them) get lots of attention, and with good reason: they happen suddenly, often without warning; they almost invariably cause the greatest damage and the greatest loss of life; and by definition they have the largest magnitude.

Amidst the sweet serenade of Salsa and Latin folk music, attendees at this year's Latin American Seismology Congress in Bogota, Colombia were treated to a series of groundbreaking (pun intended) research results from AIR's seismic hazards team.