Take a hint, Indonesia
Sep. 14th, 2007 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khaosworks5th strong quake hits Indonesia in 3 days
But given all this tsuris descending on Indonesia (which may be karmic retribution for fouling up our air with their slash and burn deforestation tactics, but I digress), the fact that the Indonesian government still hasn't backtracked on their plans to build a freaking nuclear reactor in East Java, another seismic hotbed, is just mind-boggling. People are protesting, Muslim clerics have already declared the impending plant as haram or "forbidden" (the Islamic equivalent of trayf, I suppose), and now there's been a blast at one of Indonesia's existing three nuclear research centres.
Dudes, someone upstairs is giving you a hint. I suggest you take it.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 struck Friday off the southwestern coast of Sumatra, the same area shaken by a major 8.4-magnitude temblor that killed nine people Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.Singapore's pretty well-sheltered from all these things — if you look at a map of the region, Sumatra stands smack between us and the quake-prone areas. We have very good feng shui, and I'm being literal here: one of the best configurations for a house, feng shui wise, is water in front and mountains at the back. We have a natural harbour at the south of the island, and Malaysia to our northern borders; geomantically, that's a formula for the money rolling in. Feng shui — the ancient Chinese art of landscaping and interior decorating. It may make you put a really ugly bust that looks like the mutant offspring of a lion and sturgeon on your lawn, but trust me, sweetie, your chi looks marvellous.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was "a very small possibility of a local tsunami" affecting coastal areas within about 100 km (62 miles) from the quake's epicenter.
The quake struck at 6:01 a.m. (2300 GMT Thursday), 120 km (75 miles) west-southwest of Sumatra's Bengkulu province and 650 km (405 miles) west-northwest of Jakarta.
The Bureau of Meteorology and Geophysics agency reported the epicenter was located 10 km (6 miles) underwater 153 km (95 miles) west of Lais, Bengkulu.
The region has been wracked by quakes and aftershocks for the past three days.
Earlier Friday, the USGS reported four more earthquakes ranging between magnitude 5.0 and 5.5 had rattled Sumatra.
Seven hours ahead of Friday morning's quake, at 11:09 p.m. (1609 GMT) a 6.2 quake hit 110 kilometers (65 miles) west-northwest of Bengkulu province at a depth of only 3 km (2 miles), the USGS said.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
A quake with the same magnitude struck the region several hours earlier, at 5:48 p.m. (1348 GMT). The temblor vibrated under the Celebes Sea at a depth of about 21 km (13 miles).
It was centered about 290 km (180 miles) northeast of Bitung, a city on the northern coast of Sulawesi, and the same distance south-southeast of General Santos, Mindanao, Philippines.
Wednesday's quake generated a series of aftershocks, including two major ones early Thursday measuring 7.8 and 8.1, said David Applegate, senior science adviser at the U.S. Geological Survey.
"It's been an incredible number of years for Indonesia and particularly for Sumatra" in terms of earthquakes, Applegate said on CNN's "American Morning" on Thursday.
"What we have here is a subduction zone, where one of the Earth's plates is moving down beneath the other," he said. "In this case, the Indian Ocean and the Australian Plate are moving beneath the Eurasian Plate.
"In this kind of a situation you're going to get earthquakes as the strain builds up, but what we're seeing now is almost every segment of this plate has ruptured just in the last several years," Applegate said.
"In each case, it relieves pressure in one area but then that increases the pressure somewhere else. And so, for example, what we saw yesterday was the magnitude-8.4 quake ruptured to the north along this boundary. This 7.8 was at the northern end of that."
Indonesia, a chain of islands in a seismically active area, is highly prone to earthquakes. Since the devastating tsunami of December 2004, Indonesia has fallen victim to 15 earthquakes with magnitudes of 6.3 or higher, according to the USGS. The quakes have killed almost 8,000 people, with the bulk of the deaths coming last summer.
The deadliest quake last summer came on May 26, 2006, when a magnitude-6.3 quake 16 km south-southeast of Yogyakarta left 5,749 dead. On July 17, 2006, a magnitude-7.7 temblor hit 145 miles south-southwest of Tasikmalaya, in Indonesia's Java region. The quake killed 730 people.
Another devastating quake on March 28, 2005 -- a magnitude-8.7 about 201 km west-northwest of Sibolga -- killed 1,313 people.
But given all this tsuris descending on Indonesia (which may be karmic retribution for fouling up our air with their slash and burn deforestation tactics, but I digress), the fact that the Indonesian government still hasn't backtracked on their plans to build a freaking nuclear reactor in East Java, another seismic hotbed, is just mind-boggling. People are protesting, Muslim clerics have already declared the impending plant as haram or "forbidden" (the Islamic equivalent of trayf, I suppose), and now there's been a blast at one of Indonesia's existing three nuclear research centres.
Dudes, someone upstairs is giving you a hint. I suggest you take it.
