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Catastrophe in the Pacific
Author: TriSec    Date: 10/10/2009 12:55:40

Have you been following the news coming out of the Pacific in recent weeks?

The vastness of the Pacific region is often difficult for Americans to grasp; the ocean itself covers nearly the entire hemisphere, and the distances are vast.

I've flown across the Pacific twice; going from Manchester (NH) to Detroit, to Nagoya, Japan, and finally Manila and back again. It's a flight of over 8,500 miles and it took well over 24 hours in both directions.


On September 29, a magnitude 8.0 earthquate triggered a tsunami that struck the Samoa archipeligo.


Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- More than 3,000 people are homeless in the Pacific Island nation of Samoa and face the risk of disease, a week after a tsunami wiped away 20 villages, the United Nations said in a statement today.

The Sept. 29 tsunami, spawned by a magnitude-8.0 earthquake, killed 137 people, injured 310 and left six still missing in the nation of 177,000, the UN said. Damage to Samoa’s roads, sewers and other infrastructure could reach $150 million, the international organization said.

The World Health Organization and UN agencies are working with the Samoan government to plan the islands’ reconstruction and ensure that it has a system in place to monitor medical needs and outbreaks of disease, according to the statement.

The UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said 9,000 children need assistance and 2,000 of those have been forced from their homes by the disaster.

On the island of Niuatoputapu, part of Tonga, the tsunami left nine dead and more than 300 homeless, the UN said. The island’s fresh water supply has been restored, and sufficient food supplies are available.


Just today, a video was released by the FBI office on American Samoa that showed the tsunami coming ashore in their parking lot.





But that's not all. Since then, there's been a series of earthquakes, floods, and typhoons sweeping through the Pacific region. We know so little about earthquakes; even with all our technology, they remain with volcanoes among the least well known and least predictable of all the natural phenomena occuring on this Earth. There's speculation that the events are related, but it's just that; speculation.


WELLINGTON, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- Links between earthquakes which have struck Samoa, Indonesia and now Vanuatu cannot be ruled out, an international expert said.

New Zealand could not afford to relax its guard against earthquakes and tsunami, the director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, Charles McCreery, said, The Dominion Post reported on Friday.

A tsunami alert went out on Thursday, after a series of nine earthquakes near Vanuatu, with the largest of magnitude 7.8. It followed a magnitude 8.3 earthquake and a tsunami which devastated Samoa last Wednesday. A quake killed more than 700 people in Indonesia hours later.

A study made public this week found earthquake vibrations may affect faults at great distances. It found vibrations from the 2004 Indonesian earthquake may have increased the frequency of small quakes in California's San Andreas Fault by causing fluids to move into the fault lines.

Links between the Pacific quakes could not be ruled out, Mr. McCreery said.

Tuesday's Vanuatu quakes generated a tsunami just 4 cm high. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center canceled warnings after 1 pm, but authorities in New Zealand stayed on alert until 4:30 pm.

New Zealand, which sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, remained at risk, McCreery said.

"You have a lot of earthquakes, you're right on the border between the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, so you have a big seismic risk, and you have some history of tsunami. If a really big earthquake rips, it will send waves to New Zealand," the Dominion Post quoted him as saying.

GNS Science seismologist Warwick Smith said links between earthquakes at great distances apart were poorly understood. "We don't know if this has advanced or set back the clock."

Niwa principal scientist Rob Bell said when a tsunami hit New Zealand after coming thousands of kilometers, the biggest waves could arrive hours after the first ones.

"What happens is they reflect and bounce off undersea shelf systems. It's like creating a disturbance in a pond, the waves will hit other waves. It gets pretty chaotic," Bell was quoted as saying.



As if that's not enough, my ancestral homeland has been struck by two devastating storms in rapid succession. First, tropical storm Ketsana swept through the main island of Luzon, swamping the Pasig River and flooding vast areas of Marikina City, a subdivision of Manila. The Philippines barely had time to take a breath before typhoon Parma struck the same region, triggering landslides on the unstable hills.


MANILA -- Rescuers dug out six survivors and more bodies buried under landslides that killed at least 225 people in the storm-soaked northern Philippines, as workers rushed Saturday to clear mountain roads to aid relief efforts.

U.S. military helicopters were on standby to help the Philippine air force deliver aid to areas cut off by road as flooded highways hampered the search for people trapped in houses buried by mud. Several choppers flew over areas Saturday where U.S. troops planned to conduct medical missions and deliver supplies.

The rain-triggered landslides late Thursday and early Friday were the latest natural disaster to hit the Philippines, bringing to more than 600 the total death toll of back-to-back storms that began pummeling the main island of Luzon Sept. 26, causing the worst flooding in more than 40 years.

Rescue operations were centered on two vast areas -- the severely flooded Pangasinan province northwest of Manila, and a swath covering the worst landslide-hit provinces of Benguet, Mountain Province and the resort city of Baguio, where most of the deaths occurred.

A 17-year-old boy was rescued from the rubble in his home in Baguio late Friday, and five others were pulled out alive in Mountain Province, said regional civil defense official Olive Luces.

On Saturday, only more bodies were pulled from under tons of mud and rocks, but Ms. Luces said, "We are hopeful that we will get more people alive."

She said local officials reported 152 bodies have so far been recovered in Benguet and 23 in Mountain Province in the country's Cordillera region on the main Philippine island of Luzon after landslides. She corrected an earlier figure of 60 bodies recovered in Baguio city, saying officials reported only 50 had been found.

Aside from the 197 who died in the landslides late Thursday and early Friday, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said 51 people from eight other provinces also were killed after Typhoon Parma made landfall Oct. 3, weakened into a tropical depression and dumped more rain as it lingered over the northern region for about 10 days.

A week earlier, Tropical Storm Ketsana left 337 people dead in the worst floods to hit Manila and nearby provinces in four decades.

The sun was peeking through the clouds over Baguio and volunteers, mostly miners, were taking advantage of the relatively good weather to step up the search for survivors, Ms. Luces said. She also called on local communities to help clear debris blocking the roads.

Army engineers were trying to remove mounds of mud and boulders on one road to Baguio. The regional center has been isolated since Thursday's landslides. The Public Works Department was clearing debris on another highway to the city, but an 82-foot of that mountain road had been washed away, cutting off all traffic, she said.

Mayor Artemio Galwan of La Trinidad township in Benguet province said 78 bodies have been recovered there. He appealed for shovels and other tools as well as portable spotlights to allow volunteers to continue digging at night.

He said the rains and landslides devastated crops in his area, regarded as the country's "salad bowl" for its vegetable farms and strawberry fields.

Benguet Gov. Nestor Fongwan told ABS-CBN television his province needed more embalmers and caskets for the large number of dead.



And what is the US doing about all this? Don't forget; we're the world's only remaining superpower, and surely we can help other places at the same time we defend the west against terrorists, right? Well, not quite. In years past, such catastrophe would have resulted in vast mobilization and an outpouring of aid to the devastated areas. The response to these disasters is lukewarm at best.


The U.S. authorized $2 million of grants for aid groups to help people affected by the storms. The Philippine disaster agency asked for American troops to be shifted to the north from the south, where they are engaged in counterterrorist training, and for the assistance of a U.S. naval vessel stationed off Pangasinan, the province worst-hit by the flooding.

ABS-CBN News said U.S. soldiers in Chinook helicopters and trucks were already rescuing people.


I guess if the people of the Pacific region can even find their boots, they can pull themselves up by the straps without our help this time.


 

7 comments (Latest Comment: 10/11/2009 01:43:56 by clintster)
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Comments:

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Comment by Mondobubba on 10/10/2009 16:31:09
:does some pitching wedge practice: Sure is empty in here.

Comment by livingonli on 10/10/2009 17:31:45
Greetings from the salt mine. Another 13-hour Saturday and transmission problems on our SEC College game to add to the fun. Also had to get a captioner last minute.

Comment by velveeta jones on 10/10/2009 17:56:51
That was a scary video that you posted. Shows the power of what water can do. I don't think that its just the US (as in the Gov't) that has a lukewarm reaction to these disasters, the sad truth is that most of us individuals continue to be overwhelmed by all the disasters that happen - between natural ones, wars, famine and brutal treatments of people - there is only so much that we can do.



:(

Comment by Mondobubba on 10/10/2009 19:17:09
Quote by livingonli:

Greetings from the salt mine. Another 13-hour Saturday and transmission problems on our SEC College game to add to the fun. Also had to get a captioner last minute.






Ugh. Sorry it's all SEC football, Liv.

Comment by livingonli on 10/10/2009 21:22:19
Tonight I shift modes and have the Devils followed by Hockey Night Live.

Comment by clintster on 10/11/2009 01:43:55
Comment by clintster on 10/11/2009 01:43:56