Planet Earth...

[Fozzer]

...with a rumbling tummy...

...again!... ....>>>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32461019

Paul.

[Jean Loup]

I lived in México city in 1985, when earthquake 7.8 degrees struck. Still today, no real count of how many people died. When a friend who directed El Universal newspaper (Mr. Benjamín Wong) put on the front page "more than 4,000 dead" & he was fired inmediatly by the government. Most buildings that colapsed were popular government buildings, some schools & some hotels. The Army took the city, but only standed there at atention to avoid looting. The people, instead of looting, were too busy diging for survivors with their nails as the tool of choice.. The USA sended help by air inmediatly, but was refused landing by the Mexican government because it "could be an american invasion". Finally, after THREE DAYS (corpses starded smelling badly) doctors without frontiers were allowed to land & use dogs for survivor search. A little street bum became famous because he entered places nobody dared & found many people alive, he was nicknamed "la Pulga" (the Flea) because of geting into really small places. In times of dire stress, the mexican government does not know how to react, they are trained to be thieves ONLY. They stole most of the foreign aid that arrived, until the University kids organized help distribution with the Red Cross. ¡¡Viva México!!

My hart is with Nepal, Everest, India & surroundings: quite a tragedy!! & looking West.

[Azframer]

Last week’s eruption of the Calbuco volcano in Chile I decided to go see what it looked like in the flight sim using Real Weather Lite, yea I know I would not see the volcano erupting but I knew the visibility would be limited correctly. I took off from Puerto Varas (SCPV)









Rick

[Webb]

On Everest, Helicopters Rescue Stranded Climbers

Efforts continued Monday to rescue climbers stranded on the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest, where avalanches triggered by Saturday’s earthquake have killed at least 18 people.

Helicopters began ferrying out some of the more than 100 mountaineers trapped above base camp on the mountain, which straddles the border between Nepal and China and lies about 240 kilometers or 150 miles due east of the quake’s epicenter.

The death toll for the 7.8-magnitude quake already has surpassed 3,700 in the region. Continuing aftershocks threaten to unleash more avalanches at the outset of the climbing season.

Hundreds of mountaineers were on Everest – a peak of 8,850 meters or 29,035 feet – when the quake struck. Onslaughts of snow and debris hit Everett Base Camp, at 5,545 meters or 18,192 feet, where the 18 were killed and dozens more were injured. Three of the dead were American climbers.

"The snow swept away many tents and people," sunburned guide Gyelu Sherpa told the Associated Press. He was among the first 15 injured survivors to be transported to the capital, Kathmandu, for treatment ...

[ViperPilot]

The people at Everest Base Camp were lucky that the aftershocks didn't bring the entire Khumbu Icefall down; Base Camp is situated perilously close to the bottom of the Icefall. On the South side, Base Camp is much further away from the bottom of the Rongbuk Glacier. Rongbuk is also much more wide open and easier to traverse than the Khumbu is.

[Jean Loup]

This conect to a newsman survivor of Everest Camp 1, above Base camp & past Khumbu icefall: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32502389

[H]

Sometimes we don't know how fortunate we are. No place is completely safe but some are dangerous places to live.
Since I work nights, I'm most often awake at 0400 as I was this week when I heard a faint rumble and felt a bit of shaking. Since I've become aware that my tiny cottage sits on a huge boulder that is shaken whenever a large vehicle (tractor-trailer, grader, etc.) drives over it on the nearby highway, I expected that was the cause. Reading yesterday's paper, however, I find that it was a 2.3 magnitude quake that occured within ten miles of me -- probably a different rock slipping off the edge of another.
I'm sure it would be enough to cause landslides if it were in a mountain range but, fortunately, it caused no major damage to dwellings or the living in the forested area in which it was centered. We are more fortunate here than we realize -- many don't even know that the seemingly distant rumble they hear is an earthquake and we have it happen more often than realized. Usually, the most that happens is a depression in the ground, rarely more than fifteen feet and more often a few.
I suppose I could be more concerned about the unstable rock my abode is on -- I'm not that far from the lake -- I could wind up underwater. Maybe I should use a boat for a bed, just in case...

[Fozzer]

A fascination discussion between a group of scientists on my trusty radio set yesterday describing the construction of Planet Earth, brings to ones attention just how thin and fragile the rocky crust that we live on, floating on a sea of super-hot molten rock and magma, with a solid lump of iron in the centre.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05s3gyv#auto

Its all a bit scary down there!!

Paul.... ...!