Earth changes

Tension mounts: Chile shaken by 7 moderate quakes in 24 hours

Time,

22 November, 2012

A strong 5.9-magnitude earthquake shook central Chile on Wednesday, causing office buildings in the capital to sway for almost a minute but authorities said no damage was reported and ruled out the possibility of tsunami along its coast.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake’s epicenter was 37 miles (59 kilometers) southwest of the port city of San Antonio, Chile. It struck at 6:36 p.m. local time. The USGS had reported the quake as magnitude 6.1 but revised the strength down to 5.9.

Buildings swayed in Santiago and some people fled to the streets in fear. Chile’s emergency services office said no damages to infrastructure were immediately reported.

The USGS reported two other temblors with magnitudes of 5.1 and 5.2 on Wednesday near San Antonio.

Chile is highly earthquake-prone and residents have bad memories of other quakes that have caused widespread destruction.

In 2010, a devastating 8.8-magnitude quake, one of the strongest recorded, and the tsunami it unleashed, killed 551 people, destroyed 220,000 homes and washed away docks, riverfronts and seaside resorts. The disaster cost Chile $30 billion, or 18 percent of its annual gross domestic product.

M-class solar flares erupts from volatile region on the Sun

  

November 21, 2012 – SUN - The magnetic canopy of big sunspot AR1618 is crackling with M-class solar flares. This image taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the extreme ultraviolet flash from one of them, an M1.6-class flare on Nov. 20th at 1928 UT: This eruption, and another one like it about 7 hours earlier, might have propelled faint coronal mass ejections (CMEs) toward Earth. If so, the impacts would likely commence on Nov. 23rd, with a chance of high-latitude geomagnetic storms following their arrival.

– Space Weather

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