A strong earthquake struck Friday in the Aegean Sea between the Turkish coast and the Greek island of Samos, killing at least 14 people and injuring hundreds amid collapsed buildings and flooding, officials said.
A small tsunami struck the Seferihisar district south of Izmir, the city in western Turkey that was the worst affected, said Haluk Ozener, director of the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute.
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The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency’s website has tips for what Tennesseans can do before, during, and after any major earthquake that hits the state. That website, www.TN.gov/tema, offers in-detail instructions on earthquakes and other threats to Tennessee residents. “We would encourage people to get educated about the threat (of an earthquake) and what they need to do,” said TEMA spokesman Dean Flener. The website, for instance, publicizes what is known as the Great ShakeOut Earthquake Drills, scheduled for Oct 17. The people responsible for the event say it will help people prepare to stay safe during any big earthquake and also help them review and update any emergency preparedness plans, according to TEMA’s website. “We have been engaged in earthquake awareness since the mid 1980s,” Flener told The Tennessee Star Monday. “The Tennessee Catastrophic Plan includes a special section just for catastrophic earthquakes. Every year we do the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut where we tell people this is what you can do to protect yourself in an earthquake. So, it’s been many many years that we have been promoting earthquake preparedness and what people should do in terms of strapping your bookcases to your wall, securing your water heater…
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Currently, there are no machines to tell us when the next big earthquake will rattle Tennessee. Also, in the immediate aftermath of such a quake we likely won’t have the capacity to make cell phone calls. All this, according to a Memphis geologist who studies earthquakes for a living. Emergency responders would have to rely on radio frequencies, including Ham radio, said Gary Patterson with the Memphis-based Center for Earthquake Research and Information. And it’s likely not because an earthquake will knock down a cell phone tower, he added. “Following any disaster, cell phones go down because they are overused, but we can still send texts,” Patterson told The Tennessee Star. Members of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and other law enforcement officials already coordinate with one another concerning how they’ll handle the immediate aftermath of a large earthquake, Patterson said. “In the worst-case scenario, there is the use of ham radio, which works no matter what the conditions on the ground are,” Patterson said. Members of CERI are working on new technology that will alert Tennesseans about a pending earthquake so they can shut down critical facilities in time, Patterson said. “This is already in process on the West…
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President Donald Trump’s administration will end a temporary quasi-amnesty program for almost 60,000 Haitians, but only after a long delay, senior officials said Monday. Officials speaking on condition of anonymity told reporters that Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke had decided to end the program for victims of the 2010 Haitian earthquake but delay its implementation…
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