 |
| Rescuers strive to find survivors after Friday's deadly
earthquake in India. |
DENVER (Reuters)
-- Is the earth coming apart at its geological seams?
With thousands feared dead after a powerful earthquake struck
India on Friday, another that earlier devastated El Salvador,
a tremor off Kyushu Island, Japan, and even a minor quake in Ohio
late on Thursday and a minor quake recently in New York City,
people start wondering.
Relax. "These earthquakes are not related," said Waverly Person,
director of the Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado,
which tracks earthquakes worldwide.
"We locate about 50 quakes every day. But you only hear about
them if people are killed or if they're felt very strongly in
the United States," Person said, rushing from one media interview
to another.
The center was established in Washington in 1966 and has been
working out of Golden since 1973. It tracks earthquakes worldwide
and often provides the first news of a tremor. Phone banks started
lighting up at the center, operated by the U.S. Geological Service,
before dawn on Friday with news that the worst earthquake in 50
years had hit India.
The tremor has killed more than 1,800 people, and officials in
India said the final toll may be much higher.
The quake was measured at 7.9 on the Richter scale by the earthquake
center.
The most murderous recorded quake in history killed an estimated
830,000 people in Shaanxi, central China, on February 2, 1556.
Events ranking about 4.5 or greater -- of which there may be several
thousand every year -- are strong enough to be recorded by sensitive
instruments all over the world.
Person said there is no reason to believe the quake that rocked
El Salvador on January 13 also triggered events that led to Friday's
earthquake in the Indian sub-continent.
The quakes occurred on separate tectonic plates and a quake on
one does not set up a domino effect in another.
According to records, about 18 major quakes -- measuring between
7.0 and 7.9 on the Richter scale and one great quake, measuring
8.0 and above -- can be expected each year. Many of these, however,
may strike uninhabited parts of the world.
But does it make life scarier for people living in quake zones?
"What it does is bring forth awareness in places like California
and Alaska. It brings it up in their mind," Person said. "But
they're not more afraid.
|
