U.S. - US
Published February 21, 2012
SIKESTON, Mo. – A magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck early Tuesday in the southeast corner Missouri, waking up residents in as many as 12 other surrounding states.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake hit at 3:58am local time (4:58am ET). Its epicenter was located a shallow 3.1 miles (5km) underground, about 150 miles (240km) south of St. Louis, near the New Madrid fault line.
Hundreds reported feeling the quake in Missouri, according to the USGS, with the most significant shaking occurring in Sikeston, a small city about nine miles away from the epicenter.
Outside of Missouri, the temblor was felt in Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and Indiana. Residents also reported feeling the ground shake in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Kansas and Oklahoma.
Save for a few reports of items falling off shelves and windows cracking, the rumbling caused no real damage.
But experts said it serves as an important reminder of how earthquakes in the eastern part of the US, though they occur more rarely, have the potential to cause damage over a much wider region than on the West Coast.
The earth's deep crust in the eastern US is "very hard, cold and dense like a slab of concrete," allowing seismic waves to travel a much greater distance than in the west, said Gary Patterson of the Center for Earthquake Research and Information (CERI) at the University of Memphis.
East Coasters and Midwesterners were reminded of that in August when a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Mineral, Va., shook buildings as far away as New York and Chicago.
Magnitude 4.0 quakes are not uncommon along the New Madrid fault line, with about a dozen occurring over the last decade, Patterson said. And the one that struck early Tuesday does not necessarily change the forecast for future earthquakes in the area.
Seismologists estimate there is a 25 to 40 percent chance a magnitude 6.0 or greater earthquake will strike the region in the next 50 years, Patterson said, and just a seven to 10 percent probability a massive 7.5 to 8.0 magnitude temblor will occur within the next half-century.
Tuesday's shaking comes nearly 200 years to the day after a powerful earthquake in nearly the same spot destroyed New Madrid, Mo., and heavily damaged St. Louis.
The Feb. 7, 1812 quake, which seismologists today guess was about 7.7 in magnitude, reportedly cracked sidewalks in Washington, D.C., and caused church bells to ring as far away as Boston and Toronto. It was the last in a series of four earthquakes that struck the region from December 1811 to February 1812.
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/21/missouri-40-earthquake-felt-across-13-states/#ixzz1n4nCUuND
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Showing posts with label New Madrid Fault. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Madrid Fault. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Spain: Student plotted attack on anti-Pope crowd
Spain: Student plotted attack on anti-Pope crowd
By DANIEL WOOLLS - Associated Press | AP – 3 hrs ago..
MADRID (AP) — A chemistry student working as a volunteer for the pope's visit to Madrid was arrested on suspicion of planning a gas attack targeting protesters opposed to the pontiff's stay, officials said Wednesday.
Pope Benedict XVI is due to arrive Thursday for a nearly four-day visit to celebrate World Youth Day, and thousands of protesters railing against his visit staged their march Wednesday night to Madrid's central Sol plaza where they have held months of demonstrations against Spanish politicians and the government's anti-austerity policies.
A police official said the suspect arrested in Madrid Tuesday is a 24-year-old Mexican student specializing in organic chemistry. She would not say whether investigators believe the man was actually capable of carrying out a gas attack, and did not know if he actually had chemicals that could have been used to assault the protesters.
The detainee was identified by the Mexican Embassy in Madrid as Jose Perez Bautista, which said he was from Puebla state, near Mexico City.
He was arrested at a Madrid convention center where the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims coming to town for the papal visit are supposed to pick up their accreditation, the police official said on condition of anonymity in line with the department's rules.
An official with the pope visit's organizing committee said the Mexican was a volunteer helping to deal with the massive flow of people flooding Madrid. She would not give her name, citing the church-run committee's policy.
A total of 30,000 people from around the world are taking part in that organizing effort, 10,000 police are providing security in Madrid and organizers say they expect more than 1 million young pilgrims for World Youth Day, which started Tuesday and runs through Sunday.
The march he allegedly wanted to disrupt happened relatively peacefully, with some shouting between protesters and pope supporters. But it ended with police ousting protesters from the plaza, with at least one arrest of a demonstrator. Riot police monitored the plaza after the demonstrators were cleared out.
Police have 72 hours from the time of the arrest to bring the detainee before a judge at the National Court for questioning or to release him. A court official said he would appear before the judge Thursday at the earliest.
The official — speaking on condition of anonymity in line with court policy — said the detainee had been making threats over the Internet against people in Spain opposed to the pope's visit, and police who'd been monitoring his online activity ultimately decided to arrest him as the visit approached.
Police said in a statement released Tuesday night that officers who searched the detainee's apartment in a wealthy district of Madrid seized an external hard-drive and two notebooks with chemical equations that had nothing to do with his studies.
It said he tried to recruit people via the Internet to help him, and that a computer allegedly used for this purpose was among objects seized by police.
The man had planned to attack anti-Pope protesters with "suffocating gases" and other chemicals, the statement said. But it did not mention police having confiscated chemicals that could be used in an attack.
Mexican Embassy spokesman Bernardo Graue said consular officials had visited Perez Bautista in prison and described him as "relaxed" and in good physical condition as he waits to go before a judge. The Mexican officials did not ask him if he had in fact planned a gas attack, because interrogating him is up to Spanish authorities, Graue said.
Without knowing what chemicals and delivery system the man may have had, it is impossible to know what harm he could have caused on protesters marching in open air through the streets of Madrid, as will happen Wednesday evening, said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defence College in Stockholm.
The suspect was in Madrid studying with Spain's top government research body, the Spanish National Research Council, and his office there was searched, the police statement said. The council confirmed the arrest but gave no immediate details on the Mexican.
Mexico's Autonomous University of Puebla confirmed that a man with the same name had completed an undergraduate degree in chemistry in 2009 and had expressed interest in doing graduate work in Spain.
"Both the name and the academic background match," said Rafael Hernandez Oropeza, the university's director of international relations. He said Perez Bautista had an 8.6 grade average out of 10, "which is pretty high."
Gloria Leon Tello, the academic director of the university's school of chemistry, said Perez Bautista was a quiet, well-mannered, hardworking student. She had contact with him as an administrator, but did not have him in class.
"He was a very dedicated student, calm, very well-mannered," said Leon Tello, who said his age roughly matched that of the Madrid suspect. "He had very deep values ... like discipline, responsibility." Leon Tello said she did not hear him express political or religious views.
Mexico has some history of conservative religious extremism.
In 1926, tensions over Mexico's harsh anti-clerical laws broke into armed conflict between the government and Catholic rebels in the bloody, three-year Cristero War in which tens of thousands died.
In 1928, a young conservative Catholic activist, Jose de Leon Toral, assassinated President-elect Alvaro Obregon.
In the 1960s and 1970s a number of conservative Catholic youth groups grew up at universities in Mexico, including Puebla, and sometimes scuffled with left-wing student activists of the time.
Church organizers say the papal visit will cost about euro50 million ($72 million). Protesters claim the government is essentially spending taxpayers' money on the visit by granting tax breaks to corporate sponsors and perks such as discount subway and bus tickets for pilgrims.
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Alex Oller in Madrid and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this story.
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Source
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By DANIEL WOOLLS - Associated Press | AP – 3 hrs ago..
MADRID (AP) — A chemistry student working as a volunteer for the pope's visit to Madrid was arrested on suspicion of planning a gas attack targeting protesters opposed to the pontiff's stay, officials said Wednesday.
Pope Benedict XVI is due to arrive Thursday for a nearly four-day visit to celebrate World Youth Day, and thousands of protesters railing against his visit staged their march Wednesday night to Madrid's central Sol plaza where they have held months of demonstrations against Spanish politicians and the government's anti-austerity policies.
A police official said the suspect arrested in Madrid Tuesday is a 24-year-old Mexican student specializing in organic chemistry. She would not say whether investigators believe the man was actually capable of carrying out a gas attack, and did not know if he actually had chemicals that could have been used to assault the protesters.
The detainee was identified by the Mexican Embassy in Madrid as Jose Perez Bautista, which said he was from Puebla state, near Mexico City.
He was arrested at a Madrid convention center where the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims coming to town for the papal visit are supposed to pick up their accreditation, the police official said on condition of anonymity in line with the department's rules.
An official with the pope visit's organizing committee said the Mexican was a volunteer helping to deal with the massive flow of people flooding Madrid. She would not give her name, citing the church-run committee's policy.
A total of 30,000 people from around the world are taking part in that organizing effort, 10,000 police are providing security in Madrid and organizers say they expect more than 1 million young pilgrims for World Youth Day, which started Tuesday and runs through Sunday.
The march he allegedly wanted to disrupt happened relatively peacefully, with some shouting between protesters and pope supporters. But it ended with police ousting protesters from the plaza, with at least one arrest of a demonstrator. Riot police monitored the plaza after the demonstrators were cleared out.
Police have 72 hours from the time of the arrest to bring the detainee before a judge at the National Court for questioning or to release him. A court official said he would appear before the judge Thursday at the earliest.
The official — speaking on condition of anonymity in line with court policy — said the detainee had been making threats over the Internet against people in Spain opposed to the pope's visit, and police who'd been monitoring his online activity ultimately decided to arrest him as the visit approached.
Police said in a statement released Tuesday night that officers who searched the detainee's apartment in a wealthy district of Madrid seized an external hard-drive and two notebooks with chemical equations that had nothing to do with his studies.
It said he tried to recruit people via the Internet to help him, and that a computer allegedly used for this purpose was among objects seized by police.
The man had planned to attack anti-Pope protesters with "suffocating gases" and other chemicals, the statement said. But it did not mention police having confiscated chemicals that could be used in an attack.
Mexican Embassy spokesman Bernardo Graue said consular officials had visited Perez Bautista in prison and described him as "relaxed" and in good physical condition as he waits to go before a judge. The Mexican officials did not ask him if he had in fact planned a gas attack, because interrogating him is up to Spanish authorities, Graue said.
Without knowing what chemicals and delivery system the man may have had, it is impossible to know what harm he could have caused on protesters marching in open air through the streets of Madrid, as will happen Wednesday evening, said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defence College in Stockholm.
The suspect was in Madrid studying with Spain's top government research body, the Spanish National Research Council, and his office there was searched, the police statement said. The council confirmed the arrest but gave no immediate details on the Mexican.
Mexico's Autonomous University of Puebla confirmed that a man with the same name had completed an undergraduate degree in chemistry in 2009 and had expressed interest in doing graduate work in Spain.
"Both the name and the academic background match," said Rafael Hernandez Oropeza, the university's director of international relations. He said Perez Bautista had an 8.6 grade average out of 10, "which is pretty high."
Gloria Leon Tello, the academic director of the university's school of chemistry, said Perez Bautista was a quiet, well-mannered, hardworking student. She had contact with him as an administrator, but did not have him in class.
"He was a very dedicated student, calm, very well-mannered," said Leon Tello, who said his age roughly matched that of the Madrid suspect. "He had very deep values ... like discipline, responsibility." Leon Tello said she did not hear him express political or religious views.
Mexico has some history of conservative religious extremism.
In 1926, tensions over Mexico's harsh anti-clerical laws broke into armed conflict between the government and Catholic rebels in the bloody, three-year Cristero War in which tens of thousands died.
In 1928, a young conservative Catholic activist, Jose de Leon Toral, assassinated President-elect Alvaro Obregon.
In the 1960s and 1970s a number of conservative Catholic youth groups grew up at universities in Mexico, including Puebla, and sometimes scuffled with left-wing student activists of the time.
Church organizers say the papal visit will cost about euro50 million ($72 million). Protesters claim the government is essentially spending taxpayers' money on the visit by granting tax breaks to corporate sponsors and perks such as discount subway and bus tickets for pilgrims.
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Alex Oller in Madrid and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this story.
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Source
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Thursday, August 11, 2011
Spanish priests join opposition to costly papal visit
12.08.11
Updated 01.14
Madrid group says €60m fee cannot be justified at time of state cuts, neither can choice of sponsors for World Youth Day
Pope Benedict is scheduled to hold a prayer vigil and mass as Cuatro Vientos airport outside Madrid, as part of the World Youth Day event. Photograph: Reuters
Stephen Burgen in Barcelona
guardian.co.uk, Tue 9 Aug 2011 14.48 BST
More than 100 priests from Madrid's poorest parishes have added their voices to the growing protest at the cost of Pope Benedict's visit to Madrid next week.
An umbrella group – the Priest's Forum – says the estimated €60m (£53m) cost of the papal visit, not counting security, cannot be justified at a time of massive public sector cuts and 20% unemployment in Spain.
Evaristo Villar, a 68-year-old member of the group, said he objected to the multinationals with which the Catholic church has had to ally itself to cover the costs of the "showmanship" of the event.
"The companies that are backing World Youth Day and the pope's visit leave much to be desired," he said. "They are the ones who, together with international capital, have caused the crisis. We are not against the pope's visit, we are against the way it is being staged."
The more than 100 corporate sponsors of the event include Coca-Cola, Telefónica and Santander. Opponents of the visit have set up a Facebook page calling for a boycott of the sponsors. Some 140 groups, among them the secular organisation Europa Laica (Secular Europe), are against the visit.
"Catholics can go wherever they like in Madrid but the freedom of movement of the rest of us is restricted," said Francisco Delgado, leader of Europa Laica, on discovering that the city had prohibited his group's proposed march.
Europa Laica plans to march under the slogans "Not a penny of my taxes for the pope" and "For a secular state". There is particular ire that the some 500,000 pilgrims expected in the city will get free transport. Madrid metro fares rose by 50% on Monday.
"With the economic crisis we are going through, we can't (can't ?) pay for this. The church should set the example," said a spokesman for the Indignados movement, which has staged high-profile protests in central Madrid. "They propose to spend €60m when the regional government has just cut €40m from the education budget."
Yago de la Cierva, the executive director of World Youth Day 2011, an event built around the papal visit, said: "We have made a huge effort to be moderate and economically responsible. The new generations – young people today – they like big events and the church uses all the tools that exist to present the message of Jesus Christ."
Interest in the Catholic church is on the wane among young people in Spain. A recent survey by the national statistics office showed that the number of believers aged 18 to 24 has fallen by 56% in the past 10 years.
The pope's visit to Barcelona last November was poorly received, with the popemobile forced to drive at top speed past small groups of the faithful along mainly deserted streets.
Source
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Updated 01.14
Madrid group says €60m fee cannot be justified at time of state cuts, neither can choice of sponsors for World Youth Day
Pope Benedict is scheduled to hold a prayer vigil and mass as Cuatro Vientos airport outside Madrid, as part of the World Youth Day event. Photograph: Reuters
Stephen Burgen in Barcelona
guardian.co.uk, Tue 9 Aug 2011 14.48 BST
More than 100 priests from Madrid's poorest parishes have added their voices to the growing protest at the cost of Pope Benedict's visit to Madrid next week.
An umbrella group – the Priest's Forum – says the estimated €60m (£53m) cost of the papal visit, not counting security, cannot be justified at a time of massive public sector cuts and 20% unemployment in Spain.
Evaristo Villar, a 68-year-old member of the group, said he objected to the multinationals with which the Catholic church has had to ally itself to cover the costs of the "showmanship" of the event.
"The companies that are backing World Youth Day and the pope's visit leave much to be desired," he said. "They are the ones who, together with international capital, have caused the crisis. We are not against the pope's visit, we are against the way it is being staged."
The more than 100 corporate sponsors of the event include Coca-Cola, Telefónica and Santander. Opponents of the visit have set up a Facebook page calling for a boycott of the sponsors. Some 140 groups, among them the secular organisation Europa Laica (Secular Europe), are against the visit.
"Catholics can go wherever they like in Madrid but the freedom of movement of the rest of us is restricted," said Francisco Delgado, leader of Europa Laica, on discovering that the city had prohibited his group's proposed march.
Europa Laica plans to march under the slogans "Not a penny of my taxes for the pope" and "For a secular state". There is particular ire that the some 500,000 pilgrims expected in the city will get free transport. Madrid metro fares rose by 50% on Monday.
"With the economic crisis we are going through, we can't (can't ?) pay for this. The church should set the example," said a spokesman for the Indignados movement, which has staged high-profile protests in central Madrid. "They propose to spend €60m when the regional government has just cut €40m from the education budget."
Yago de la Cierva, the executive director of World Youth Day 2011, an event built around the papal visit, said: "We have made a huge effort to be moderate and economically responsible. The new generations – young people today – they like big events and the church uses all the tools that exist to present the message of Jesus Christ."
Interest in the Catholic church is on the wane among young people in Spain. A recent survey by the national statistics office showed that the number of believers aged 18 to 24 has fallen by 56% in the past 10 years.
The pope's visit to Barcelona last November was poorly received, with the popemobile forced to drive at top speed past small groups of the faithful along mainly deserted streets.
Source
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Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Great Central U.S. Shakeout
8:30 AM, Apr 3, 2011
St. Louis (KSDK) - Officials in Missouri and Illinois want residents to be prepared for an earthquake. .
More than 1.6 million people and groups have registered to take part in a nationwide earthquake drill April 28th. .
It's part of a national effort to get schools, businesses and families ready for a disaster. Emergency officials say its important here because we're so close to the New Madrid fault.
To take part, sign up for the "Great Central U.S. Shakeout" by clicking here
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